Morganne August (guest)
00:00:04.080 - 00:00:35.830
If you're taking care of your people, they'll take care of your business and taking care of. And you're going to think that this is funny to say on an episode about the four day work week.

Taking care of your people doesn't mean throwing perks at them. It means treating them like people you know, not cogs.

It means giving them autonomy and trust and flexibility and the ability to bring their whole focused, concentrated selves to work because you've given them time for rest and time with their families and time to catch up around the house and things they need to do.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:00:37.750 - 00:02:09.990
Hi there and welcome to the Step Up Expert Voices for Leadership Growth. I'm your host, Kent Knievel. Every week I talk to experts who focus on helping leaders step up their leadership game.

If you're new to the show, then on whatever platform you're using, I encourage you to subscribe so you never miss an episode. One last thing.

As a leadership development consultant and executive coach, I have a particular interest in supporting recent internally promoted leaders.

If that's you, or if you support a leader who has been recently promoted, I encourage you to visit my website at Kent Coach Playbook and download a free copy of my 90 day blueprint filled with practical advice for you or the leader you support in hitting the ground running and truly stepping up to their new leadership level. Without further ado, on with the show. Welcome everyone. Today I'm really excited for our guest today.

We're going to be talking about the four day work week and I'm going to say it now because I almost said it during pre recording was the four hour workweek but that is Tim Ferriss book. No, we are here to talk about the four day work week. And with me for this conversation today is Morgan August.

And I have to look at my notes because I'm going to forget it right away. I apologize Morgan, director of people operations at GEAR and who rolled out a four day work week two years ago.

And so I wanted to bring you on today when I heard about this mutual connection of ours put us in touch news like you got to talk to Morgan. They did this. They did the four day work week. You know it's great story, you should hear about it.

And so so glad that you agreed to come on the podcast today and tell us all about it.

Morganne August (guest)
00:02:11.190 - 00:02:25.330
Yeah, thanks Kent for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

And you know, just like you say, you might say the four hour work week, I might say web strategies because we just recently rebranded to gear. So forgive me if do that. Our company's name is Gear.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:02:25.890 - 00:02:48.610
Perfect. Thank you.

And before we get into the topic, I just think people like to hear, especially any sort of early or even curious mid career professionals out there that get to hear these interviews. Would just love to hear as much of your sort of career arc, career story leading up to today as you're willing to get into.

So would love to hear, love to hear about your hero's journey.

Morganne August (guest)
00:02:49.660 - 00:02:56.780
Yeah, sure.

And you know, if there's anything I've learned listening to your podcast so far, it's that most HR professionals did not start there, they fell into it.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:02:56.860 - 00:02:57.300
Yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:02:57.300 - 00:03:08.780
So same for me. I went to school, I got my bachelor's in English and my master's in secondary education. So I was a middle and high school English teacher.

Loved the kids.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:03:08.860 - 00:03:09.340
Yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:03:11.100 - 00:06:47.360
Does love to the kids. Loved finding new and creative ways to teach. Loved making connections. Always had a hard time with administration.

You know, I just didn't feel like teachers had the framework and the support they needed to succeed. But I also knew that I didn't want to go into administration or policy.

So if I wasn't going to help be the change, then I needed to get out because I was just going to be bitter and resentful. So, you know, I played around for a little bit. I went back to school and got a master's in English or fun, I guess. My poor husband.

And then I fell into a startup here in town and into sort of a catch all marketing role. And what drew me to the startup was their mission.

They had set out to help folks who were in difficult living transitions in between difficult living transitions. So that could mean cleaning out a loved one's house after they passed. That could mean moving an elderly relative into assisted living.

And I'd lost my dad just a couple years prior, so that was something that was like very fresh to me still. And I've always been, you know, pretty mission motivated. So fell into that. Didn't love the marketing aspect, but I did love the startup part.

I liked the fast pace, I liked all of the learnings. You know, we learned about mergers and acquisitions and all these things that, you know, usually at 24 you're not getting to experience yet.

And I also met my current CEO and company there. We were their client at that time. So that's when this first seed was planted. Spent a little bit more time in a different startup.

You know, this is all Covid era and so also trying to have young kids, which was very difficult to do at a time when you're also trying to grow your career. But it also highlighted for me, you know, how inextricably connected our work lives and our personal lives are.

And it was always very obvious to me when the proper framework and proper supports were in place for people to thrive at work.

So those couple of years that were really tough were also the time that I learned, okay, I want to continue building connections with people, and I want to help them succeed at work. I can very clearly see the synchronous connection between the company's success and the person's success.

I believe they have a lot to offer each other, and it's sort of an unlocking that can happen, right? So, you know, the closest might as well go back to school and learn some more things. So the closest official, official career for that was hr.

So I got my, my SHRM certification and Chris Leone, our. My CEO, we kept in touch over the years. He tried to recruit me as a, as a client success manager, as a marketer.

And, you know, I said, I love you and I love the company and I don't want that. I don't want to be in marketing. But he took a chance on me. I'm our first people person.

We were at about 32 people when I joined, and we're knocking on the door of 50 now. So a lot of growth in a short period of time. And I get to build processes, I get to build connections between people. I get to help unlock that.

That key between people thriving and the company thriving. And I'm having a lot of fun.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:06:47.760 - 00:06:50.720
So how long have you been in HR now?

Morganne August (guest)
00:06:51.120 - 00:06:52.000
About four years.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:06:52.000 - 00:06:58.080
Four years. Okay. Amazing. And you've said that you're the HR department of one, correct?

Morganne August (guest)
00:06:58.870 - 00:06:59.190
Correct.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:06:59.190 - 00:07:41.450
Okay, so I've got to ask you my most selfish question, because having spent most of my time in talent and things that I might refer to as the fun hr, I, you know, anytime I've looked at head of HR roles at smaller companies or even HR business partner roles, frankly, elsewhere, I think the one thing that I've probably, maybe I've held myself back more on it than not is the work or time one needs to spend in or around or with comp and benefits, employee relations, things like that.

So I'm just curious, are you diving into those things as well as the department of one, or are you able to be pulling in, you know, fractional support or, you know, other support in those areas?

Morganne August (guest)
00:07:42.409 - 00:07:43.930
Yeah, department of one.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:07:44.010 - 00:07:44.570
Okay.

Morganne August (guest)
00:07:44.570 - 00:07:57.380
But, but I will say, you know, I, I have the sort of phone a friend benefit. You mentioned our mutual connection, J.D. slaughter.

I, I am lucky to know people who've been in this world a lot longer than I have and I call them readily.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:07:57.460 - 00:07:58.340
Yeah, yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:07:58.500 - 00:08:34.420
You know, I, there's, there's someone here in Richmond, Virginia that I met early on getting my SHRM certification and I think I called her once a month for the first year or so and it felt like I was dealing with some sort of wild and crazy situation every month that year, you know, so, so, you know, I think if as long as we're not too proud to lean on our resources and not, and not too, too proud to really, I was going to say Google, Ask, Chat, GPT, whatever you need to know and then check your sources.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:08:34.580 - 00:08:35.260
Yeah, yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:08:35.260 - 00:08:37.300
Open up your old textbooks, then you can find.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:08:37.620 - 00:09:18.540
And like you said, SHRM is a great, you know, resource. Yeah, great resource. Especially around some of the, like, some of those pieces that I'm, you know, that I was even talking about. Cool.

So let's, let's dive into the four day work week. I'm, you know, so you rolled it out two years ago.

I think what I would love and kind of what I'm thinking of here is, you know, let's say there's business leaders or HR leaders listening today. I kind of want to take it from the beginning a bit here and say, where did the idea even spring up for you? You know, how were the beginnings?

How did you even start to dip a toe into the idea of a four day work week?

Morganne August (guest)
00:09:19.420 - 00:09:39.740
Yeah, great question.

So, you know, our CEO has never revealed to me who this employee is, but even predating me, we did employee engagement surveys and someone wrote on the employee engagement survey one time, you know, if you, if you were a CEO for a day, what would you do? Four day work week.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:09:40.070 - 00:09:40.310
Yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:09:40.310 - 00:11:10.380
And Chris kind of laughed at it. You know, then in early 2023, the results of that big pilot in the UK came out. 61 companies, incredible results.

I think 53 of them stuck with the four day work week after that pilot. Surges in employee satisfaction and wellness and also productivity, most of the companies reported higher earnings than they had ever before.

And the component that really piqued Chris's interest was this idea of the operational excellence that goes hand in hand with the four day workweek.

So not only is it an opportunity to give your folks a day of rest, which we all know is good for productivity in itself, you're also condensing your work down to four days, which requires more focus. It requires one of our core values, essentialism. It requires reviewing everything you do and asking Is this really necessary?

Does this move the needle? Is this worth it? You know, looking at our processes, is this the most efficient way to go about this?

And it also happens that this is, you know, we're rolling this out with the explosion of AI.

So in the digital marketing space, it's also, how can we leverage AI to do our work faster and better and then spend the human brain time on the higher quality, higher cognitive thinking components of our work?

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:11:10.380 - 00:11:12.060
Yeah. Cool.

Morganne August (guest)
00:11:12.220 - 00:12:16.220
So that was sort of the beginning of it. And I think he brought it up to me in January and I was like, have you lost your mind? So he and I had many discussions.

We started speaking with Joe o', Connor, who's the CEO of Work Time Reduction, and he was part of that initial pilot. And so his company now helps, but he's. They're consultants. They help folks set this, this pilot up.

Yeah, they help them find their own efficiencies and figure out if this is something that, that they can be successful in. So we had a lot of conversations with Joe and then we timed it out so that we would do a quarter of. We did.

Q2 was all right, this is, this is the goal.

Every department is in charge of finding these efficiencies and assessing the work that we do and asking, is it really essential, reviewing your meetings? Do they need to be this long? Could they be a little bit shorter in preparation? And so then July 1st is when we rolled it out.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:12:16.620 - 00:12:18.740
2023. Three.

Morganne August (guest)
00:12:18.740 - 00:12:21.460
Okay, yeah, 2023.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:12:21.460 - 00:13:03.440
All right.

I want to pause you there because I want to get to your findings and how it's going, but let me, you know, push us back to the beginning, beginning again for a second.

So this was not a harebrained scheme of HRS coming to this was your CEO brought it to you, having sort of read about the UK study, but I'd imagine the two of you now, unless gear is just small enough where CEO says yes, you're on board and go. Or was there some level of influence and storytelling and buy in you had to seek first? And how did that go? How did you get people on board?

Morganne August (guest)
00:13:03.760 - 00:13:28.910
Yeah, great question. Certainly a level of buy in needed to happen. At the leadership level.

We have a director of operations, director of accounts, director of digital marketing, who's in charge of product and business development. And everyone had their own set of concerns and hesitations.

And, you know, some folks are naturally more excited by change than others, and some folks are a little more cautious. So we had many discussions at the leadership.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:13:28.910 - 00:13:30.710
Can I make a couple guesses? Just for fun.

Morganne August (guest)
00:13:31.270 - 00:13:32.470
Sure, go for it.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:13:33.110 - 00:13:34.550
Marketing was very excited.

Morganne August (guest)
00:13:35.110 - 00:13:35.550
Yes.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:13:35.550 - 00:14:02.440
Oh, maybe not. Okay, okay, okay, listen, we will. I'll let you pause to protect the innocent. Okay. Don't, don't worry about it.

Sales maybe more concerned because, you know, the concern probably being, well, we need to be in, we need to be working when our customers are working. Right. I'd imagine that's some, some level of concern there. I'll just stop there. I was gonna. Let me just pick on sales and marketing.

Morganne August (guest)
00:14:02.680 - 00:14:14.360
Yeah, no, but sale sales and director of accounts for sure has valid concerns because the rest of the world is not on a five day workweek. Our clients are not on a five day work week. Sales is gonna pick up the phone when the phone rings.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:14:14.440 - 00:14:15.560
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:14:15.640 - 00:14:24.520
And so we can get into a little bit more about how different folks like solutions and. Yeah, yes. Yeah, we can get into that a little bit more. Yeah, she's going to answer the phone.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:14:25.320 - 00:14:33.160
Okay. But I totally interrupted you in talking about kind of the, I don't know what you'd want to call it. The roadshow. You had to go on to sell this.

Morganne August (guest)
00:14:33.880 - 00:15:12.870
Yes. So getting, getting buy in at the leadership level was the first hurdle. Then you got to get all the managers on board.

And I think once you get to individual contributors, they're cautiously excited. Right. And we already, we have been remote since before my time. We have had a flexible schedule since before my time.

Those have been tenants of gear long before I arrived and long before we rolled out the four day work week. So we already have a really supportive, what I think is a very supportive culture for, for our employees.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:15:12.950 - 00:15:41.100
Well, so what, what was and maybe now is. And you tell me if it's better to come later. The answer to this question or what is now versus what was, but what is the current company?

And in office, I think you said hybrid already.

So there's already sort of a, you know, was there already any hard and fast, this many days in the office, this many not, you know, do you already have people who are permanently remote? Like, what's that mix?

Morganne August (guest)
00:15:41.740 - 00:15:48.980
Right? Yeah, good question. So we, I guess we would have been hybrid prior to Covid based in Richmond, Virginia.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:15:48.980 - 00:15:49.459
Okay.

Morganne August (guest)
00:15:49.459 - 00:15:53.100
But even then, no in office requirement.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:15:53.180 - 00:15:53.740
Okay.

Morganne August (guest)
00:15:53.820 - 00:16:05.650
And then Covid hits people move away. I get here, you know, I kind of say, can we turn off the filters? Can I search for people all over the country? And I get to go ahead to do that.

And so now we have folks.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:16:05.730 - 00:16:06.370
Okay.

Morganne August (guest)
00:16:06.690 - 00:16:09.810
In 12, 13 different states, I believe.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:16:09.890 - 00:16:10.450
Okay.

Morganne August (guest)
00:16:10.610 - 00:16:18.170
And we're about half outside of Richmond. Half in Richmond. Still. No, we. We don't have an office. We. We do use a co working space occasionally.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:16:18.170 - 00:16:19.490
Okay. Did you have an office.

Morganne August (guest)
00:16:21.250 - 00:16:22.210
Way back when?

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:16:22.210 - 00:16:25.170
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay, cool. So very distributed.

Morganne August (guest)
00:16:25.890 - 00:16:26.130
Yes.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:16:26.130 - 00:17:11.260
Yeah, very distributed. Okay, that's cool. I just think it's good context for anyone listening who's like, ooh, how do we, you know, how do we do this?

Just to hear, you know, what that looked like for you. Okay. And then you said a couple other things again, I'm trying to keep my eye on.

I want to get to like, what are all the learnings you've had along the way? How are things going? You said two things that I wanted to dig into.

One is let's start with AI because I think that's, I think, you know, such a hot issue right now. And let me rewind the clock here. Right. So you were starting to talk about this in late 2022. Right. And.

Or like, you know, kind of got the, we're going to do this in January of 2023. Right. And so if I think a little it.

Morganne August (guest)
00:17:11.420 - 00:17:14.820
That was more like January 2023 was the starting to dabble.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:17:14.820 - 00:17:15.180
Thank you.

Morganne August (guest)
00:17:15.180 - 00:17:20.300
Okay. And then more like February, March, it's like, okay, let's do it. Yeah.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:17:20.300 - 00:19:47.620
And if I think back to where I was at the time, right.

I'm in talent at General Mills and I think, you know, they were looking at if to me, AI felt within the bounds of a this, you know, Fortune 500 company.

It felt like AI was very much in its sort of, sort of infancy and trying to figure out, I think policies were just starting to roll out around what you can and can't use chat GPT for, like how to keep IP and customer information off of any external while we play around with it and figure out are we going to have our own, you know, internal GPT that's firewalled off from the world. And at that time, I feel like people were just barely dabbling with how to, from a job perspective, how to interact with AI. Right.

Fast forward to when I left my corporate gig in late 2024 and you know, now into 2025.

And it's like there's sort of this AI explosion happening, right, where there's probably a bubble that's going to pop at some time of quote unquote, AI experts who are selling their, you know, of a five year old technology that are selling their, you know, services. But I'd have to talk to some former colleagues that are in these larger organizations to find out like, what's life really like there right now.

But at least from my vantage point it's everywhere.

And perhaps it's more the small business and entrepreneurial spaces that I'm primarily swimming in where it feels like everybody's trying to use all the possible things and generative AI and agents and all this stuff. So. But you were already talking about in 2023, how can we use AI for.

I'm probably going to put words in your mouth a bit here, but I think what you were alluding to was things that don't require as much human interaction, human creativity. Is there some way to automate and my guess here is some way to automate more routine stuff or what was that?

Because to me when you said that I was like that sounds so ahead of, ahead of the times right at that time. So I would just love to hear a little bit more about were you ahead of the times and how were you using it then versus versus now?

Morganne August (guest)
00:19:48.100 - 00:20:12.360
Yeah, sure. Great question. And I'll say though, Kent, Chris, R.C.

i was, you know we work for a digital marketing firm so already it's our job to know these things. He, he is very, you know, forward looking. He wants to be on the cutting edge and he's so. He is. So we were probably.

But I will say he and I also had that bubble popping conversation just recently. So you're right there, you're with it.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:20:12.360 - 00:20:12.800
Yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:20:12.800 - 00:20:33.720
But yes. So the way we were using it then, very different than the way we're using it now.

And also cautious because we work with credit unions and we do not download or keep customer data ever. But certainly had to formulate a policy that we were going to really get our guns to about not uploading client data or client information.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:20:33.880 - 00:20:39.860
So you can be really clear with your customers about kind of like we were doing at General Mills, like what we can and can't and what we are and aren't.

Morganne August (guest)
00:20:39.860 - 00:20:52.900
Yeah, yeah, yep, exactly.

And, and even now, you know, even now our CEO will say I don't put any information about our clients in there because even when you say don't train on it, it's still, you never know, slightly irresponsible. Right?

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:20:52.900 - 00:20:53.340
Yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:20:53.340 - 00:20:59.820
But back then I think it was really rudimentary and you know, where can we get sort of these small wins.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:20:59.900 - 00:21:00.420
Yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:21:00.420 - 00:21:33.860
And now it's their entire tools. You know our advertise, our advertising team is looking into, into ways to automate some of their check ins and things like that.

We have our client success team is generating these custom GPTs that can help them answer any Questions about. We also work with industrial manufacturers. So these really technical spaces that you have to have specialists to tell you what's up.

You know, you can develop these, feed information to these custom GPTs and then run reps, speaking with them and practicing with them and then you learn too.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:21:34.180 - 00:21:34.540
Okay.

Morganne August (guest)
00:21:34.540 - 00:22:19.140
We're talking too about, about creating a custom GPT for training our managers. You know, these are our management philosophies gear. We believe in radical candor.

We, you know, we operate on, on eos and so giving it all the information we can about us and then saying, here are six different scenarios that I want you to run. Here's the grading rubric.

Go and give, you know, a really good specific piece of, of positive feedback and then get your grade back and do that six more times with six more different scenarios. So it is exciting. And I will say we had a strategic initiative, I believe last year that was making AI as necessary as having an Internet connection.

And I think we've done that. I think we're there.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:22:19.220 - 00:23:32.660
Wild. Okay. If I'm not careful, we're going to keep diving into that, but it might come back up because you also said essentialism. Right.

Like that, that, you know, has been a really important. Right.

And my, I don't know, amateurish understanding of essentialism for me from, for me, from my perspective is even just pausing for a minute and saying what's the most important thing I need to get done today so that I don't spin my wheels on lower value activity. Right. Can I really focus on the most important things to do? So and it sounds like that was part of the mandate right away for you all was.

And so what are some of the things that. Right. Because you said focus and essentialism. So what are some of the things that you've had to be really ruthless about? Right.

No, we're not going to spend our time on that. Right. I think a lot of companies, a lot of, I know the conversation was in HR all the time, which is ruthlessly prioritizing. Right.

And I think one of the favorite things I've seen about HR lately has, and I've heard it before has been put the list of things you're doing in HR and ask yourself if we stop doing it with the employee based notice.

Morganne August (guest)
00:23:33.220 - 00:23:35.100
Right. But that's a good one.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:23:35.100 - 00:23:52.110
Maybe a bit, maybe a bit of an aside. I apologize. But talk to me about like how you've, you've been bringing.

Because I would, it makes sense to me how important that would be for the four day work week. Right. Focused and Sensualism. So how have you been bringing that to life and keeping a focus on that?

Morganne August (guest)
00:23:52.590 - 00:24:33.070
Yeah, good question. And it, it has to be done at the organization level, at the department level and at the individual level.

And so it's different for, for all of those, those different levels.

Organizationally at the about that same time, we made a commitment internally to really stick with these two verticals that we've made a bunch of progress in. So, you know, we don't need to take on any client that knocks on our door.

We're going to stick with these two verticals because we're really good at them. Something else Chris says all the time is we want to be. We don't want to. Basically, you don't want to be known for what you're worst at.

So don't take on, you know, if.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:24:33.150 - 00:24:37.630
We'Re not being mediocre across a million things versus excellent at.

Morganne August (guest)
00:24:38.030 - 00:25:28.290
Exactly, exactly. So committing to excellence in our verticals was something we did at the organizational level. Cool.

I think a lot of at the department level, specifically for me and hr. And I think you nailed it with the sign on the wall. Acknowledge that every time you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else.

So weigh this yes that you're saying now against something that's probably going to come along here in a little bit. And is that, are you comfortable with that being a no? Because, you know, they can't both be yeses and you do them well with excellence.

Something else. This one, you know, also I strive for all the time. What is the minimum viable product for this? What's its simplest version? You know what?

Because also often that's the easiest for people to use and implement. So keep it simple, as simple as you possibly can.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:25:29.250 - 00:25:52.100
Okay. I feel like I might have sidetracked us for far too long and I apologize for that because you just said some things that really popped for me.

So you started to roll it out. You did do this roll roadshow and had to start having conversation around, you know, focus, essentialism. How are you using AI?

I don't know where that brings us to in the timeline from 2023, but I'd love to hear more of the. The journey.

Morganne August (guest)
00:25:52.580 - 00:28:24.350
Sure.

And you know, I think something that's interesting, people might not be aware of that there are several different models of the four day workweek that different folks roll out.

So I can tell you a little bit about the one we chose and why and you know, laying out expectations and things like that, because that was a huge part of getting everybody on Board is being sure we're clear on expectations and continuing to clarify those. We just revised them again last month.

So we are on the 180, 100 model of the four day work week, which means we do 100% of the work impact and output, not necessarily tasks and 80% of the time for 100% of the pay. So this is not a consolidated, this, you know, people always ask, is it 10, is it 10 fours? No, it's not.

We have reduced the time we are spending on work, we've reduced the time we're spending doing client work on billable hours. And so that's where it really comes in. You've got to be doing the things that drive the largest impact.

We also decided instead of doing staggered days off, we would do a universal day off. So we do Fridays off. However, Friday is not a weekend day, it's not a Saturday, it's not a Sunday.

So if you're going to be completely out of pocket and unavailable, you still have to put in your pto, which we have unlimited pto. So it's also, it's okay. It's more communication at that point than it's communication.

It's the communication and being sure we have coverage in place. So if you're going to be out of pocket completely, treat it like a day off. Be sure you've got coverage.

Communicate to everybody in your pod and on your team that that's what's going on and this is your coverage. Otherwise, if you're a client facing person, you're expected to check your email three times.

Once in the morning, once in the middle of the day and once in the afternoon. And if you're a project manager or if you're on the production side, you're supposed to check slack three times a day.

So the idea is if a client comes in with something urgent, the client success manager visits the urgency tree to determine is this something that needs to be done right now? And if it is, they send the slack to the internal teams that need to know and it can be done by the end of that day.

So we have that system in place for, for capturing those, those urgent tasks. We just did a sort of follow up survey. It's not, you know, I don't think that the urgent tasks are coming in all that often.

I think it's more about preparing for the next week.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:28:24.770 - 00:28:25.090
Yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:28:25.650 - 00:28:27.410
That people are wanting to do, you know.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:28:27.410 - 00:29:06.170
Okay, so I have a couple questions because I want to make sure I understood the language because I think I got a little lost in the language on the 80, 100 part. So tell me if I'm understanding or not. So we didn't say you're now working 4 tens.

You're working for regular day is eights, you know, or whatever for a sal, you know, whatever a salaried level person's expectations would be. And if you're out, let us know. But otherwise we're expecting some level of presence in order to handle urgent things.

Particularly my guess is customer needs on a Friday. So let me pause there. Am I following?

Morganne August (guest)
00:29:07.290 - 00:29:08.410
That's correct, yes.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:29:08.570 - 00:30:16.010
So then in my mind, if I can just play it out as like, if I was working that way, what would that mean for me on a Friday? On a Friday, that would mean for me I can mow my lawn.

I can maybe get instead of what the weekend can tend to be for adults and even separate that out a little bit for parents as well, which is jamming everything you didn't have time for in the week. So plowing through, you know, laundry for one to five or six humans, yard work, housework, you know, other errands one needs to run.

Instead of jamming that into Saturday and Sunday, maybe Friday, because I know I need to check my email a few times during the day. I'm going to do some stuff around the house that relieves some pressure for my weekend.

Mow the lawn, do some laundry, you know, maybe some house projects where I can still check my email. Something urgent comes up, great. I'm going to drop and take care of what needs to get taken care of. But kind of making it so that my.

It's almost helping you maximize the weekend than say, quote, unquote, only working for four days if I'm.

Morganne August (guest)
00:30:16.570 - 00:30:19.330
That's so productive. Okay, that's spot on.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:30:19.330 - 00:30:20.090
That's really cool.

Morganne August (guest)
00:30:20.490 - 00:30:34.490
That's what it is for sure. And another thing, you know, something that I certainly use it for and I think others do as well, is it's deep work time. Right.

So, you know, I get the kids.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:30:34.490 - 00:30:35.530
No meetings allowed.

Morganne August (guest)
00:30:35.530 - 00:31:03.270
Yeah, no meetings and no. And nobody slacks me for the most part. Right. So. And you know, in hr, you got things coming at you all day every.

There's really not good deep work time in the work day, Monday through Thursday. So, you know, this. These.

These projects that are very important to me and that I want to move forward that I used to have to spend maybe Sunday night or a weeknight on. I get the kids off to school, I get to go to yoga, and then I come sit down for two hours and lock in.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:31:03.350 - 00:31:03.910
Yeah, yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:31:03.910 - 00:31:15.110
And there's something, you know, there's like the pressure is, is released. So your brain is even more open for creative thinking. So you, you hit, you hit it spot on. That's, that's what it is. And it's really cool.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:31:15.110 - 00:31:57.330
That's not at all what I was expecting to hear. Right.

I was expecting to hear like a 4 10, which I know you said there's other models for it, which I don't think, you know, perhaps I'll have to have you come back on for four day work week number two day. But that sounds really cool. It sounds really cool and doable.

But to your point, if you're not going to extend to 4 tens, then now I can see even with 4 tens, I can see it, but I can see it even more how important, you know, essentialism is. How do we reduce low value time spent or low value activity from being done well?

Morganne August (guest)
00:31:57.330 - 00:32:05.530
And you know, the human brain is not capable of focusing for 10 hours at a time, frankly, not eight either. Right. So the work that you're going to.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:32:05.530 - 00:32:09.370
Get, hardly for more than 60 to 90 minutes at a time, but sure.

Morganne August (guest)
00:32:10.170 - 00:32:12.810
And also the work's going to expand to fill the time that you did it.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:32:13.210 - 00:32:32.330
Yeah. All right, let me box us in a little bit because I'm trying to just want to watch the time.

But I think you and I are going to have to debrief and frame up conversation number two, which I'm not going to make you publicly agree to on the air. So results I'd love to hear about, you know, how are things going?

Morganne August (guest)
00:32:34.010 - 00:33:08.230
Yeah, great. So to tell you about results, I think I need to tell you about what we've measured.

So the metrics that we've kept track of since the beginning of this and that is time spent on tasks and then lots of lagging metrics. So our nps, our nbs, and then all of our, our revenue goals and all of our revenue metrics and then finally our ENPs, our employee satisfaction.

So I have data from basically every three months for that first year and a half.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:33:08.390 - 00:33:08.870
Yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:33:08.950 - 00:34:20.850
And so for that first year and a half, productivity stayed the same. Time spent on tasks, defre NPS stayed the same. NBS stayed the same. We hit all of our revenue goals and our ENPs surged.

We were at about 50 in July of 23 and we got all the way up to like 85. Yeah. So but you have to know, and we had talked about this going in, that the novelty of that's going to wear off, first of all. Right.

Second of all, it Takes continuous upkeep. I mean we've had 20 folks join since then, since that time. So. And those folks weren't here prior to the four day work week.

So really kind of indoctrinating them into this is how we're doing things now. Also they usually, you know, haven't experienced this at other places.

So coming in and knowing, all right, it's, this is a place where I really need to buckle down and get my work done. But I'll be rewarded for it if I do that. So really every, you know, the first 18 months, everything was incredible. Great results.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:34:22.850 - 00:34:26.850
One result, really quick. Okay, so you were just saying you got some new data that you're looking at?

Morganne August (guest)
00:34:27.330 - 00:35:24.640
Yes, yes. So we just got some new data last quarter.

And generally speaking, this data says, you know, I, Most people about 25% work a little bit at least one Friday a month. Another 22% work at least a little bit two Fridays a month.

And then another 22% say I choose to work some on Fridays because I use that flexibility elsewhere in my week.

So, you know, especially folks with kids in school where you're gonna, you're gonna want that uninterrupted time, but you can also take off at 3 and go get your kids. So it's that level of flexibility that we've introduced that I think people have really come to appreciate and rely on.

And, and that's the value that they see in it. That and what I mentioned earlier, which is that heads down focus time where people aren't pinging you and you don't have any meeting.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:35:24.880 - 00:35:46.960
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool.

So yeah, like you said, maybe I, kids, school starts at eight so I'm, I'm not gonna be like online until, or like, you know, my, my kids middle school doesn't start until 9:30. Right. Doors open at 9.

Morganne August (guest)
00:35:46.960 - 00:35:47.440
Wow.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:35:47.600 - 00:36:19.120
Right. So like I might be online from 8 to 9 and then I'm going to be off from 9 to 9:30ish, and I'm back on at 9, you know, so maybe I'll flex.

I mean that's hardly any time away, but you know, I'll flex some of that time by working a little bit on Friday. And that's acceptable with the exception of. Right. And I'd imagine.

So here's a question for you is how, how much do you have to reinforce and guard against scheduling meetings on Friday? Because I'd imagine it's so tempting.

Morganne August (guest)
00:36:19.840 - 00:37:02.780
Yes, it's a great question and it is tempting and it's something we just reinforced. So we, we had that survey last quarter and really one of the biggest findings was people aren't totally clear on the expectations.

So we revisited the expectations we wrote at the beginning. We tweaked them a little bit so that they reflected how we actually are operating.

We reiterated them to the managers, we sent them out with the survey results. And then I'm actually going to have everybody sign a copy. They don't know that yet. They're going to.

Everybody's going to sign a copy from our HRIs so that they acknowledge that they know what the expectations are. And those are Friday meetings are a last result, a last resort.

For example, our client facing team can do all they can to avoid client meetings on Fridays, but sometimes you just can't.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:37:02.780 - 00:37:03.460
Right, right, right.

Morganne August (guest)
00:37:03.460 - 00:37:26.800
And so they'll take that, you know, and then there are certain weeks, for example, next week we have our biannual in person retreat. So we fly everybody into Richmond. It makes for a very short working week as far as task work and client meetings and things go.

So occasionally on weeks like that, there might be a meeting that pops up on a Friday. But it should be an absolute last resort and it can be very tempting.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:37:26.800 - 00:37:29.680
It should be the exception and not the correct.

Morganne August (guest)
00:37:30.000 - 00:37:31.280
Correct, correct.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:37:32.960 - 00:39:49.220
So. Well, can I. Let me ask a question about that and then if you can come back to it. Because the thing that.

So I think over the last couple of years, organizations have been pushing more to get people back in offices. I know gear is primarily a distributed and virtual. So I get that.

But the parallel that's in my head is especially as organizations are, there was a big push this spring. I think this was probably the biggest push all at once. And I get it.

Some companies just built their office right before the pandemic hit and or even, you know, gender mills where I worked, this is not something they said. But I look at, they have a huge plot of land, a lot of green grass that they're watering and keeping nice and paying groundskeepers for.

In a giant building that in Minnesota you have to keep pipes from freezing. Right. So they're probably, they're having to heat and cool this giant building.

Like I, I get from a nuts and bolts perspective that we've got to get people into the office. Right. But what I've seen happen and I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get back to gear. I promise. We're getting there. We're going around the cul de sac level.

Right.

But part of why I think so many companies had to push for with a million reasons, but a big thing I've seen time and time again is we have a really hard time managing by exception.

And so therefore we have to put blanket rules in place and say everyone's coming back this many days because so many companies tried to have policies that didn't have teeth in them.

And what it comes down to, and this is where I'm getting to my question for you, which is I would imagine the company's small enough, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'd imagine this comes down to managers managing their people and paying attention to performance and having radically.

Candid, as you were saying, radical candor and having conversations about, you know, perhaps not spending any time on work on Fridays isn't working for you. How do we, you know, how do we do that? Right.

So I think that's the thing that popped in my head is like, how much are you needing to manage your managers, frankly?

Morganne August (guest)
00:39:49.220 - 00:39:49.580
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:39:49.580 - 00:40:00.020
And hold them to the high expectation of how they're managing their people and holding them to these expectations. Thank you for coming on that really long journey with me.

Morganne August (guest)
00:40:00.500 - 00:40:02.380
It was fun. It was great.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:40:02.380 - 00:40:02.900
Okay.

Morganne August (guest)
00:40:03.140 - 00:41:37.290
It was so good. No, that, that's a great point.

And something else I was going to say that that surfaced in that, in that survey is that people want to be clear how much they value the autonomy that they have.

So I think what we're striving for and what we try to train our managers to, to be on the lookout for is, you know, it's, we, we still track hours because we have to, to, to be sure we're paying attention to utilization and capacity and knowing when we need to hire someone. But really, you're keeping tabs on the outputs. Right? It's, it's high autonomy, high flexibility, high trust, and high expectations.

So the outputs need to be there. You need to be asking about them. Expectations don't change either. Right.

So just because we're working one fewer day in the week doesn't mean that you're not expected to get this internal project done that you signed up for and are excited to do now. We are perfectly reasonable. And there are times when the client work is rolling in at a pace that everybody's just really trying to stay afloat.

And at those, yeah, put that internal project on the back burner.

But for the most part, we expect everybody to, you know, contribute not only to their everyday work in those client and those client projects, but also we're a really fast growing digital marketing agency. And so it's everybody's job to stay on the forefront of what we can provide for our clients to be sure they're getting what they need, you know.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:41:37.290 - 00:42:17.740
Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I'd imagine, especially with, with the size. Right. And I think what you said, if I can put in, maybe make sure I'm following is.

And I knew this from when I was in a consultancy, right. Like, profit's not a dirty word. It's what keeps the lights on. It's what pays everybody's paychecks.

And so perhaps that's part of the prioritization and essentialism is like, is this in service of a client project? Is this in service of revenue generating work?

And if not, that is probably something to be weighing, you know, does that fall farther down the list of priorities then?

Morganne August (guest)
00:42:17.820 - 00:42:25.740
Right. Yeah, if it's, if it's for fun, maybe that's a Friday thing, you know, if it's not something that's gonna, that's gonna drive results.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:42:25.830 - 00:43:16.960
So, yeah, cool. Fun. There's so many other questions I could dig into, but what a really cool story.

So before I give us a violent shove into the advice column, sounds like things are going great, results are looking great and there is no plan to adjust. But from what I'm hearing is you need to keep an eye on what you're measuring, you know, measure what gets measured, gets managed. Right.

So if you're not, you know, make sure you know what you're measuring so that you can.

It sounds like you've multiple times in the last couple of years had to sort of reinforce what the expectations are and, and even, or even adjust the expectations because we had to. Look, you know, you've been learning, you've been learning as you've. It's not like you've implemented this at four other companies. Right. So you.

Morganne August (guest)
00:43:16.960 - 00:43:17.280
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:43:17.280 - 00:43:17.680
You know.

Morganne August (guest)
00:43:19.990 - 00:44:30.030
Right. And you know what, what else I'll say is that this is not, this doesn't make us immune to every other issue that companies face. Right.

Actually, I think Joe o' Connor said, maybe it's not Joe, but I'll attribute it to him anyway. He said the four day work week doesn't solve problems, it surfaces them.

So when we, you know, when that sort of efficiency is falling to the wayside, when we have processes that are far too complicated or when we're getting outside of our, our core niche areas, it shows faster because there's less time to be working on that stuff. So we're constantly working on that.

I mean, we have planned at our retreat next week to, to buckle down into our pods and figure out what can be discarded or changed to keep us moving at this pace. And so I'll also say, you know, transparently, our ENPs dipped at the beginning of this year, but, you know, so did everyone else's.

You know, and, and that is not, you know, our, our CEO will tell you I do not rest on that as an excuse. I'm constantly looking for, okay, what can we be doing better? What are our people saying? How do we need to address that?

So it, it's not a silver bullet and it doesn't make you immune to.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:44:30.110 - 00:44:30.670
Yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:44:30.990 - 00:44:33.550
To all the other waves that are crashing down.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:44:33.710 - 00:45:03.840
Cool. Yeah, I, I, So the space that I primarily play in. Right. Is executive coaching, leadership development.

So I would imagine you don't need to say a word when I say this, but I would imagine. Right. Like people who are excellent at leading and people who are struggling at leading.

To your point that you're attributing to Joe o', Connor, it becomes very obvious. Right. With, with how things are condensed and the need to really have sort of be vigilant for essentialism, essentially. Yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:45:03.840 - 00:45:06.200
Yeah. There's less time to hide in.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:45:06.540 - 00:45:23.420
Yeah. Wow. Okay. I always ask everybody to come with two pieces of advice and a grab bag.

So the first is, you know, what's your, and it could be related to this, it could be something else that's just pulled your focus too, which is, you know, what's one piece of advice you have for any people, leaders who are listening today?

Morganne August (guest)
00:45:24.860 - 00:46:40.200
You know, I don't know if this is advice, but it is my personal sort of people operations philosophy. And I stole it from, I mean, I originally saw it in Danny Meyer's book Setting this Table.

I think it's also like a Ritz Carlton sort of radical hospitality theory, which is, is that of the virtuous cycle. And essentially it's, if you're taking care of your people, they'll take care of your business and, and taking care of.

And you're going to think that this is funny to say on an episode about the four day work week. Taking care of your people doesn't mean throwing perks at them. It means treating them like people, you know, not cogs.

It means giving them autonomy and trust and flexibility and the ability to bring their whole focused, concentrated selves to work because you've given them time for rest and time with their families and time to catch up around the house and things they need to do. So.

And I think, and also just this is not really related to four day work week, but respecting them as creators and as relationship builders themselves. This part resonates with me, the Ritz Carlton, it's, I think their mission is still we're ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.

So treating your people like the subject matter experts that they are and they'll be more than willing to take care of your clients for you.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:46:40.360 - 00:46:45.880
Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So what's your advice for those who support leaders out there?

Morganne August (guest)
00:46:46.520 - 00:48:13.210
This is definitely not advice because this is something that I just tell myself all the time. This is like something I'm working on for myself this year. So I'll just share it with you in case it resonates for somebody else.

But create systems and framework that enable and empower your managers to lead. So I have a habit of over buffering and I have a habit of being the bridge instead of building the bridge.

But that's not scalable and it doesn't teach anybody anything.

So you know, for example, working on adjusting our annual reviews this year, our 360 reviews and I want to make them more frequent, I want to make them simpler just to build that radical candor muscle in our, in our people. And there was a lot of concern at the leadership level that this is going to be a huge administrative burden.

I don't, it's not going to work well if it's something that I'm just taking on and reaching out to people and nagging them and tapping them on the shoulder to do it. So what it needs to become is part of managers KPIs and so their managers need to be saying, hey, how'd your quarterly conversations go this quarter?

What's your feedback score on, you know, the custom GPT that we built? Can you show me a few of the examples?

So putting it back on people so that they're developing and they're learning and they're figuring it out on their own and you're not building yourself into these systems.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:48:13.290 - 00:48:36.000
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I say about, you know, with leaders it kind of, it resonates with just leaders coaching. Right.

Is, is, you know, yeah, sure, you can roll up your sleeves and just jump in there and do it. But are you then building capability and are people learning how to do it when you're not there? Right. I love that.

So and grab, what's, what's your grab bag item for today?

Morganne August (guest)
00:48:37.040 - 00:48:42.790
Yeah, my grab bag is a very four day work week focus and it's just don't be afraid to explain experiment.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:48:42.790 - 00:48:43.270
Yeah.

Morganne August (guest)
00:48:43.270 - 00:49:27.870
You know, I think we're afraid to play. Especially in hr. We're afraid to play. We're nervous. But you know, I think our CEO is a really good example of this.

You know, initially he said, no way, we're not doing that, and then was not afraid to say, all right, let's give it a try and, and adjust accordingly.

I mentioned earlier about, you know, he's super excited about AI, has been from the very beginning and isn't afraid to say, actually, you know what, I do think there's a bubble coming. And, you know, I do think that we're saying some sort of reckless and dangerous things about AI that just aren't true.

So I'm going to amend what I said earlier.

And it encourages other people to experiment and it encourages people to, you know, not be afraid to try something that might have them fall in their face, but at least they tried.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:49:28.190 - 00:49:37.360
Yeah, love that. Yeah, you got to build in that risk tolerance. So that such a catchphrase, perhaps, but the like fail forward mentality of like.

Morganne August (guest)
00:49:37.440 - 00:49:37.760
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:49:37.760 - 00:49:43.360
We shouldn't be so dug in as to not adjust or do a 180 because it's not working. Right.

Morganne August (guest)
00:49:43.440 - 00:49:44.480
Right. Yeah.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:49:44.640 - 00:50:03.370
Awesome. Well, Morgan, thank you so much for coming on today. This was perhaps way too much fun for me, and so hopefully you enjoyed it as well.

And I think our listeners and those who are sort of four day work week curious will get a lot from this. And so I just really appreciate you taking, taking the time to come on the podcast today.

Morganne August (guest)
00:50:04.090 - 00:50:05.530
Thanks, Kent. I had a great time.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:50:05.530 - 00:50:06.650
Yeah. All right, take care.

Morganne August (guest)
00:50:07.050 - 00:50:08.170
You too. Bye. Bye.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:50:09.050 - 00:50:31.380
That brings us to the end of our episode. Thanks for listening.

I'd encourage you to head on over to my website, Kent Coach, and start a conversation with me there or check out my promotion playbook at Kent Coach Playbook. Before you go on with your day, I ask that you please take a moment to leave a rating and a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Five stars.

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