A four-day workweek sounds like wishful thinking, but it could soon become a reality in one U.S. state. Later this month, Maryland lawmakers will hold hearings on providing tax credits to businesses that pay employees a 40-hour wage for only 32 hours of work.

Does that sound like subsidizing laziness? In fact, a global study on people who worked 20% less recently concluded that productivity remained the same or even increased at most companies, along with employee satisfaction and positive mental health. Check out our previous coverage of this emerging movement.

Would you want a four-day workweek? Would it work in your business? Tell us why or why not at b.newsletter@gmail.com. We’ll share the most interesting responses!

Voluntary severance: Is it time to pay your employees to quit?

Straw polls: A way to improve decision-making meetings.

Nic Cage: Actor’s meta comedy shows importance of due diligence. 

(Source: Shutterstock)

It can be hard to keep track of where employers stand with their workforce lately. Is there a labor shortage or do employers have too many workers? 

 

Well, it often comes down to what industry you’re in. For example, the healthcare and hospitality industries are still experiencing a high number of job openings. On the other hand, layoffs are ravaging the tech industry — more than 1,000 tech companies made layoffs in 2022 — as a result of rapid post-pandemic rehiring sprees, elevated interest rates, high inflation, and fears of a looming recession.

 

But laying off employees isn’t the only way to reduce your workforce. If you’re in an industry that needs to downsize, you might consider offering voluntary severance. When done strategically, it’s an effective way to amicably downsize, encourage underperforming workers to resign, protect your brand reputation, and limit the possibility of employee litigation.

 

How Amazon made its buyouts work

 

A successful recent case of voluntary severance was at Amazon. Back in November, the retail giant needed to eliminate as many as 10,000 jobs. Employees who volunteered to step down were offered reasonable severance terms (e.g., three months of pay minimum and temporarily continued or subsidized insurance).

 

This wasn’t a golden parachute, but it was gentler than a forced layoff would’ve been right before the holidays.

 

When voluntary severance backfires

Another high-profile (and far more controversial) recent case was at Twitter. When Elon Musk took over the social media company, he demanded that employees commit to being “extremely hardcore.” If they didn’t agree to work intense hours, they could resign with an extra final payment, which came across as a threat and sparked media outrage.

  

Make voluntary severance work for you

 

Employee reductions are often met with resistance and unrest, but offering voluntary severance can soften the blow. It’s reasonable to inform employees that they could risk involuntary terminations otherwise  — but you might want to limit your use of the term “hardcore” while doing so.

(Source: Shutterstock)

Dr. Steven Rogelberg is Chancellor’s Professor at UNC Charlotte and former president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Conducting a straw poll prior to a group decision can be a useful way of seeing where attendees stand. Data from the poll focuses conversations around solutions with the most support.

 

The most common poll is something called plurality voting: each attendee has one vote, and they assign it to one potential solution they find most compelling. However, another option called multivoting is showing better results, according to new research published in the Academy of Management Discoveries.

Multivoting Allows for Greater Nuance

In such a poll, each attendee gets, say, 10 votes — depending on the number of options being evaluated — that they can allocate across potential solutions. They can assign their votes any way they like. For example, they can allocate all 10 votes to one solution or perhaps five votes to a couple solutions they see as viable.

As noted, groups using multivoting outperformed groups using other approaches. This could be the case for several reasons:

• Multivoting requires the attendee to think much harder about all the potential solutions and their relative value.
• Potential solutions are less likely to just fall off the table (unless they receive zero votes, which is uncommon).
• It gives the group a lot more data, and thus discussion can be broader and more inclusive.

Give multivoting a try. It works and is actually fun to do.

Do you have a business question for the Organizational Psychologist’s Couch? Send it to b.newsletter@business.com and our experts could answer.

(Source:  Lionsgate)

Last year, Nicolas Cage made an epic comeback on the big screen as, well, himself. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a self-aware comedy in which washed-up, broke, and desperate actor Nicolas Cage (the character) accepts a $1 million offer to star in a movie written by wealthy megafan Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal).

The problem? The CIA informs Cage that Javi might be responsible for the kidnapping of a politician’s daughter … and they want Cage to spy on him. The longer Cage spends with Javi, the more he grows convinced that his family’s life is in danger — though it turns out (spoiler alert) the real threat is Javi’s cousin.

Cage might’ve avoided the situation entirely if he (or his agent) had performed their due diligence. When you’re making a deal with a new partner, you need to look at their track record to ensure they’re trustworthy. That might not entail a CIA-level sting operation, but just look at all the celebrities who are now apologizing (and being sued) for endorsing FTX and other crypto scams.

So do your due diligence before doing business with a suspect source. Know your partners and don’t think that big names and big checks legitimize an entity. (Unless that name is Nic Cage.)

(Source: Shutterstock)

Negronis are just the right balance of sweet, bitter, and boozy. Typically made of equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari, try swapping in an ounce of mezcal (replacing the gin) next time you make one. The subtle agave smokiness adds a nice warming note for the season.

Written by Skye Schooley, Ali Saleh, and Aaron Goldfarb. Comic by John McNamee.