Rethinking The 40-Hour Week

A lot of organizations say they want flexibility, then quietly slide back to the easiest rule of all: be in the office, be online, be “on” for 40 hours. We push on that default and ask a sharper question: what outcomes are we actually paying for, and why do we keep treating presence like performance?

We unpack what we’re hearing from the market about workplace flexibility, from reduced schedules and “parent hours” to job sharing and realistic part-time roles. We talk about the talent you lose when you refuse to redesign jobs, especially experienced late-career professionals who still have deep expertise but don’t want a full-time grind, and working parents who need schedules that fit real life. We also challenge return-to-office policies that claim “fairness” while ignoring the reality that many roles like finance, training, and accounts payable can be done anywhere with the right expectations and tools.

From there, we get practical about outcomes-based performance: defining volume and quality, setting clear standards, and paying fair market value for the work instead of obsessing over the clock. We also acknowledge the messy parts leaders worry about, including benefits eligibility, overtime, and exempt vs non-exempt rules under the FLSA, and why those constraints make flexibility feel hard even when it’s possible. Tammy closes with a personal story about pay equity and a raise she didn’t take, showing how compensation, expectations, and growth are tied together whether you like it or not.

If you’re rethinking your remote work policy, hybrid work schedule, four-day workweek, or how to keep great people without burning them out, this conversation will help you make smarter tradeoffs. Subscribe, share this with a leader who sets schedules, and leave a review. What would you change first: hours, outcomes, or benefits?

Transcript

Cheerleading Cold Open

Tammy 0:30

Good morning, Tammy and Scott. Good morning, Carmen.

Karman 0:35

Hello, Carmen. Are you at the end of a long tunnel, Scott?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Hello, Carmen. Carmen. Carmen. Carmen.

Karman 0:50

Carmen. Yeah, that's what we want to hear. Like the cheering of my name again and again. Carmen. Carmen.

Tammy 0:56

Carmen. Carmen.

What Flexibility Workers Want

Karman 1:00

And uh listeners, I hope you, yeah, have enjoyed this edition of Cheerleading for Carmen. No, here's what's really on my mind this morning. I I recently met a woman who is about my age who is retired from uh like healthcare administration. She was like not like a hospital administrator, more like a like a trainer. And she was telling me that for most of her career, she worked a modified schedule that let her be home about the time that her kids got home from school, and she had Fridays off. And yeah, I thought this was really interesting because when I was in the prime of my career, like those kinds of options didn't really exist. Like you were uh, you know, eight to five plus, and that was kind of the only uh situation that you could could offer. I think that's changed a lot in the world now. And at the same time, like that's coming from both sides, right? That's coming from what employees are asking for, it's coming from employers, uh trying to find some more flexibility for people. So my my real question for you guys this morning is like as you are out talking to a lot of different kinds of organizations, what's the flexibility that employees are are really asking for? And what does that mean for employers right now?

The Return To Office Reality

Scott 2:51

Yeah. That's not the question I thought you were going to ask.

Karman 2:55

You're gonna ask me if I uh you think I was gonna ask if I get Fridays off?

Scott 3:00

No, no, no. I thought you were gonna ask, like, what are we seeing out there? Um, because I personally I am not seeing as much flexibility as you would think. I'm seeing more organizations say, let's return to the office, thou shalt.

Tammy 3:19

Do you know it's interesting because if we were to back up the bus just a little bit, obviously, COVID, we all learned what we had to do. And right after, like COVID, kind of like it's like, all right, now in that spot, I think there was a time period in there where their companies were really considering these options. What I will tell you is I don't think they're considering them at all anymore. And and I personally think that's a mistake for a lot of reasons. And Scott, I'll I'll hear for you. But I think that there are a lot of great employees who actually would like a modified schedule, would prefer to work not five days a week, but maybe four, even three, um, wants, you know, I'm gonna call it parent hours now. We used to call it mother's hours in that particular spot. And I think that if organizations were willing to figure out how to right-size a job for a staff member that didn't want to work a 40-hour work week, or to look at how job sharing, we, you know, that was a thing years and years ago. Two people took one job, look at job sharing in a in a unique way. I actually think that that would be super, super attractive to at least two groups of the talent pool. One of them fits us, Carmen, right? We're at the back end of our careers and we're not done yet. You know, we're not quite ready to hang up our our you know, heels and and be done with the workforce. But we just a 40-hour work week isn't isn't really, I don't have the energy and the drive necessarily for a 40-hour work week, but I still have all the expertise that is up there in that brain that I want to use. And so I think there's a whole set of what we call, you know, gray hairs, really affectionately, right? Folks who are at the back end of their career that still really want to contribute and still can contribute at a high level, just don't want to do that full time. And then I think there's a whole set of young people and a whole set of young parents, both, right, that still would like to be able to look at some of those options as well. And I think we're missing out because companies won't think about what that looks like in terms of benefits, in terms of scheduling, in terms of workload. And I think that's personally, I think they're taking the easy way out and instead of doing the hard work, losing out on some great opportunities. Scott, how do you see it?

Scott 6:10

I keep thinking back to, you know, when I worked in manufacturing, I can remember talking about how do we figure out schedules to right tap into workforce. And, you know, I was constantly told, no, there's no way we can figure out how to share. And I love what you said. It was, well, it sounds like we're not willing to do the hard work. And frankly, shame on us. Then that's okay. And I shouldn't say shame on us. That is a decision. And when you make that decision, then you are choosing to accept the consequences, good and bad, of that decision.

Tammy 6:51

Well, I just think it's not smart simply because if we could figure out scheduling and do that hard work and like change that, I'm gonna call it a habit. Who decided 40 hours was the right number of hours?

Scott 7:05

Oh, 100%. We we had this conversation in extreme facilitation last week. How many hours is work-life balance? And I I drove home that work-life balance is bullshit. And you know, check out our podcast about about that. And I think it's for me, what I look at is I am not saying that returned office is bad. I worked for a tech company for three years and we were doing remote before remote was cool, and we had certain rules. So I had rules for my project managers that if you wanted to work remote, you had to know your job. You had to be performing your job at least at a level of acceptable, you had to have a certain internet speed, which is weird to say out loud in today's day. But to be able to run the technology, you had to have a certain speed, otherwise, you weren't going to connect. And if you could do those things, then you could be fully remote. And I expected we had once a quarter where that team all came together. You had to come for that, and we paid that travel, which again, I have a personal opinion that that like if you choose to live, you know, hey, I'm gonna move outside the city and I have to drive in 60 minutes. Well, that is a choice, and we still pay for that, which is okay. I'm not like that's okay, you can make those decisions. For me, it's what's the purpose of saying you thou shalt come into work? Are you trying to create or shift a culture? Are you trying to, you know, build the team together? Are you like all of those 100% make sense? When it's well, you know, gosh, we're a hospital and this this work group has to be there in person to treat patients, therefore, everyone, because it's not fair. No, I'm sorry, that doesn't make any sense to me. If I'm an accounts payable clerk, I can do accounts payable from anywhere. Like, I don't need to sit in front of a computer to do that, you know. I don't know.

Tammy 9:12

I'm laughing because one of our clients in COVID made their accounts payable folks come in because it was financial and they had to all be there where we could see the work that they were doing, and everybody else got to go, but the finance people had to come in. And I always thought that was so like foolish, right? There's so much work that can be done. And by the way, not getting interrupted, keeping your head down, get you know, there's there's focus work that sometimes, and I know we're getting off track, Carmen, but there is sometimes that actually working in a quiet private space instead of an open cube environment, which by the way, I still don't like in that space, right? It makes sense that there's some people that really are much going to be much, much more productive when they're in a quieter space or in a space where there's not a lot of people around, right?

Scott 10:07

So for me, at the for me at the end of the day, it's how are you designing that role and how are you designing the schedule for that role and or for that person to achieve the outcomes? Because, like to me, 40 hours, 20 hours, I'll be right frequently. If I am your boss and you achieve the outcomes, and you can do those outcomes in 20 hours, congratulations. That also means me, I haven't designed that job right, and there's probably some more I some more potentially that I could add. And for me, it's not about saying, am I getting them to this magical 40 hours? Okay. For me, is is it is it looking at and saying the work they're doing, am I paying a fair market value for that work based on your geographic area and education and all the other things that go into that? And if I'm doing that and they're achieving it, why do I care how many hours? Why do I care?

Pay Benefits And FLSA Tradeoffs

Tammy 11:15

Especially since we know that different human beings work at different paces. And so, in that spot, I mean, honestly, Scott, you and I are really, really quick. And do we get rewarded for being quick or do we get kicked for being quick? And you get more work, yeah. And that's what my father always said. My father always said that because he was quick, he got extra work, and because others were slow. And I think that's the other thing as bosses, we need to really look at and say, okay, it is it is not something where it's like, oh, let me give you more and more and more and more because you're fast. It's like, what is a fair amount of work for this particular position? And Scott, you said something important. Employees also have to understand if I want to work a 30-hour work week, I've negotiated that I'm only gonna work four days a week. Let's just take it to that number, right? Four days a week. Don't expect necessarily that you're going to get the same pay and the same benefits as others, right? That's the other piece of this.

Karman 12:23

But if I'm getting the same outcomes as somebody who works needs to work five days.

Tammy 12:30

Well, that's perfectly fine, right? Yeah, but it it's like if you want a lesser workload, right, in that space, right? And that's this is a hard thing to work out, which is why HR doesn't do this.

Scott 12:43

And you have the FSLA saying, oh, this is an exempt, this is a non-exempt position, this we have to pay overtime, this we don't, right? You have all of that that you have to also man break and again, all of those rules were put in for good reasons, so and like people didn't take advantage, etc. Totally, totally get it. And you can choose to provide benefits to someone working less hours. That is your right as an employer.

Tammy 13:16

Okay, let's hear that again, right? You are not by law saying unless you are working a 32-hour work week, you know, you can't get them get benefits. That's not necessarily accurate. You can give someone who works 10 hours a week benefits. Now, are these really hard conversations? Because, see, it's easy to track 40 hours. You're in the office 40 hours. It's really easy. That's why we had time clocks. We went in, punched it, right? And then we punched out and we looked, yep, and we're gonna pay it. That's the easy way to measure whether an employee is adding value to an organization. It keeps you from having to really track, are they adding value? Okay. What we're tracking is they showed up. Showing up is not the purpose. It's how does this person do work in a way that brings value to the organization so that the organization can not only pay your salary, but keep a pe a portion of it for investing in other things, et cetera? In that space, we are just doing the easy thing instead of sometimes thinking about the hard thing. And the hard thing's hard. Don't get me wrong, Scott. You worked at a manufacturing organization where they shifted how shift work went, right? Didn't you go like from a five-day to a four-day 10 hours or something like that while you were there?

A Raise Lesson From Early Career

Scott 14:46

Yeah, well, and sometimes that was driven by market. Okay, and so some some roles would you would you wouldn't need this equipment to run. And I still find it fascinating that you have the the situation where this person could get the volume of work we needed done in eight hours, but we would require them to be their 12. It's insane. It makes no sense to me. Now, I do think you have to you have to have some level of quality or control around, like, hey, you don't get to make you know a thousand widgets of crap, you know, there. So to me, there is this volume. When I think outcomes, there it's a volume and a quality conversation, whether it's widgets, whether it's a like I'm processing a accounts payable, whether it's I'm doing training, like to me, it is it is a volume and quality conversation. What's the right volume that's fair and equitable for what you're paying that role? And are they delivering on the quality that is expected? If you're doing that, that to me is you're achieving the outcomes. And to Carmen's point, if you can do that in four days a week, I kind of don't care. Now, I this is a Scott personally, then it's going to be, oh, wait a minute, they have capacity and am I gonna add to their plate? I think what's what you have to do in that scenario is is that the right thing to do? And then am I paying whatever that market value for that added stuff? Because sometimes, and this is what's hard is am I doing it to fill the 40 hours? Sometimes I do that. Like, let's be fair, we do that because like we get boneheaded and we don't think. Sometimes it's hey, you haven't yet reached the capacity I, you know, the volume and quality I would expect for that role at what we're paying you. But I'm really not adding on top of, I'm adding you to get to where I think that should be. And am I having that conversation to say, hey, Tammy, you know, you know, you're three months in and you're doing a really good job. Now it's time to do the rest of your job that we hired you to do. Right. But wait a minute's gonna mean I'm gonna have to wait work five days a week. Yeah, I understand. And that's the job we hired you to do.

Tammy 17:13

You know, years ago, when I first actually moved to Iowa, worked for a company called Excellence and Training Corporation, and uh they hired me in, and I had a title. I had been there about a year, maybe, maybe even a year and a half too. And uh they hired someone in with my exact same job title. Now, there's a long story that goes with this. My my boss kind of made a mistake and he he left the offer letter to this other individual on the copy machine back in the day when you did those things. And another staff member found it and they brought it to me. And I found out that this person was making more money than I was making. It really bothered me. I was like, that's wait a minute, it's the same job. I've been here, they're coming in, they're gonna make more money, and it really bothered me. So I thought about it for a while, and then I actually went in to the president of the company because I reported to a vice president and I went around him and went to the president of the company, and I brought the letter in and I said, Hey, this was left on the copy machine. Uh, another employee picked it up, brought it over to me, and I wanted you to see it, and I wanted to talk about the fact that my salary doesn't match this person's salary, even though it's the same job description. And the president company looked at me and he said, Well, let's sit down and talk about it. I was like, Okay. And I was thinking, yep, you know, and there's lots of reasons. This person was male. I mean, I had I thought for sure I was gonna get the big raise, right? At that particular moment. And he said, if you can do the same quality of work as this person, because we're expecting more from them than we actually expect from you. You're rather relatively new in your career. This person has been in this industry for longer. We're expecting more from them. And if you can actually work at that level, and if you can bring in and do the same quantity, quality of work as this human being, we'll give you that raise. That's not a problem. So, do you want it now or do you want to earn it? And I said, Well, I would like it now. And he goes, Well, that means that you don't have the opportunity to grow into it, you need to be there. And I sat there and I thought it for a little bit, and I thought, I'm doing as much as I can. I don't even know what is even possible beyond what I'm doing right now. And all I could think about was, and if they were going to raise the bar on me, I probably will fail. And so I told him no. Now I know that sounds really weird because most people would take the money and run. No, I actually was, I could not envision being able to do more than I was right then. And he was saying, you have to do more in order for us to pay you more. And that was such a great learning lesson. I was like 27, 28 years old, and I told them no. Now, here's the fun part. This guy came in and he was not my peer, he was terminated. And that was the other really great lesson, is that my boss exactly my boss and my boss's boss like recognized that he was not adding value, and when he did not add the value that they needed, they terminated him and they did not terminate me. And that was a great learning lesson, Tammy. Right, earn that and then get paid for it versus take the risk. No, I I'll I know I needed to know that that paycheck was there, and I think there are a lot of people in that world, right? So earn it, earn it by really doing great work.