Is the Future of Work a Shorter Working Week?

August 23, 2023

Compensation, Innovation/Creativity, Leadership, Strategy, Talent Management, Wellness

Summary

In this keynote presentation and discussion, leading global work time reduction expert and evangelist Joe O’Connor will cover:

The growth of the international shorter working week movement;
The historical context and present dayimperativefor work time reduction;
why organizations are doing this;
how they are doing it;
what emerging findings from global four-day week trials and research is telling us, including exclusive insights and data from ongoing projects and case studies;
how the Work Time Reduction Center of Excellence partners with organizations to successfully and sustainably reduce work timewithout compromising productivity;
the synergies between AI, remote work, and work time reduction; and
implications for the future of work.

Speaker(s)

Joe O’Connor, Director & Co-founder of Work Time Reduction Center of Excellence

Joe is the Director and Co-founder of the world’s first Center of Excellence in Work Time Reduction, a globalpartnership initiative with leading people-first transformation company Curium Solutions which is headquartered in Canada.

Previously, as the chief executive officer of 4 Day Week Global, Joe led the design and implementation of four-day week trials all over the world, supporting hundreds of employers and thousands of employees to make the transition to reduced-hour, productivity-focused working in 2022.

Joe recently led a research project on work time reduction as a visiting research scholar with CornellUniversity in New York City.He is now based in Toronto, where he heads up Canadian operations for Curium Solutions in addition to directing the Work Time Reduction CoE.

Joe is also formerly the chairperson of the Four Day Week Ireland campaign, having founded thecoalition in 2019, where he developed the world’s first four-day week pilot program and research project in 2021 upon which the global trials were modelled.

He has been active on the issue of working time reduction since 2018, when he organized a major international conference on ‘The Future of Working Time’.