183. Does the 4-day work week really work? with Jeanette Ramsden, CEO at The Curve Group
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I was one of the first to sort of adopt the four-day working week but actually we're 35 hour flexible working week and that's taking the four-day working week to the next level again and we've seen no dip in performance whatsoever. There are other things that we have had to work harder on but the performance isn't one of them. All I can say is it is worth it. UK has got traditionally

one of the worst working hour weeks of the whole of Europe. And I worry for industry that we're not going to have people that will be able to give people

a nice working life because they've not got decent leaders. This, I am going to transform this person's working life and it might be helping a line manager through a difficult situation, helping organisations grow very quickly. It's life changing, it's human beings. I'm honestly getting a bit immersed, you know, and I'd love to go to a four day work week. I'm a bit fearful. What advice would you give them? You want them in the office for a five day working week. Well, you know, good luck with that.

You know, you're not going to attract the best talent. And even if you do, they're not going to stay with you very long because there are other employers out there that are going to be able to offer this. And guess what? They will leave. By the way, let's don't get me started on AI and recruitment. But anyway, be careful when you implement these things that you're then not then...

Hello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. We are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a chartered occupational psychologist.

My name is Al, I'm a business owner. And we are here to help you create amazing workplace cultures. Today, we're joined by someone who's actually gone and done what many companies only talk about, implemented a four-day workweek across their entire organization. Kinda, as we'll learn. It's not quite a four-day workweek, but it certainly is reduced working hours. Jeanette Ramson is CEO of The Curve Group, a company that is transforming HR and recruitment through a deeply human-centered approach.

What is really cool about Jeanette's story is that she's not just experimenting with work hours. She's fundamentally rethinking what makes a productive, engaging workplace in 2025. And let's just be honest for a second. When an HR recruitment company like Curve makes this sort of bold move, it sends ripples through the entire industry. They're essentially walking the talk, practicing what they preach to their clients about

creating cultures where people genuinely want to work. Exactly. And the research on reduced work hours is compelling. Studies repeatedly show it can increase productivity, improve well-being and reduce burnout. But there's a massive gap between this theory and actual implementation. Jeanette has navigated those practical challenges that trip up so many organisations. It's

If you haven't listened to Tuesday's episode, then go back and listen to that as well once you listen to this one, because we have the amazing Grace Tallon on there who's from the Work Time Reduction Center, and she's got a really spicy hot take, but it talks all about that. If you're a business owner, though, and you're wondering how a reduced time work week could work in your company, or maybe you're just intrigued by the idea of working a bit differently, you are going to love this. We're going to get into the nitty gritty of how Jeanette made it happen without sacrificing client service,

We'll also explore Jeanette's perspective on leadership as a woman CEO in an environment where there's increasing talk about masculine energy in the workplace. You're going to really like her answer. After this short break, join us for a conversation that might just change how you think about the future of work.

Okay, let's go and meet the amazing Jeanette Ramsden. Jeanette Ramsden, I am the CEO of The Curve Group. The Curve Group is a professional services firm specialising in HR and recruitment. And we've been running for 20 years now.

providing services to our customers and that can be in any format in the employee life cycle. Our target customers are businesses that have anything from 100 to 3,000 employees and we're literally here to help the HR community achieve their goals in business, quite frankly. What am I famous for? I've been a bit naughty actually as a CEO occasionally.

You know I have to ask, how are you naughty? Just challenging traditional working techniques. I think getting a blend. We're about to take the next generation of workforce in. That's going to be six generations working in the workplace.

And they all need different things. And I think it's incredibly important to not forget sort of traditional and true work methodology, but actually bring a lot of fun and new thinking to the workplace. You know, I was one of the first to sort of adopt the...

I know the topic is four-day working week, but actually we're 35-hour flexible working week and that's taking the four-day working week to the next level again. And there's some really good reasons for that. I mean, it is exactly what we're talking about today, the four-day work week, or I guess more accurately reduced working hours. So can we start at the beginning? What led you to decide that you wanted to introduce working?

a 35-hour work week and would you mind just explaining how that's slightly different to what a lot of people would have heard of as the four-day work week? What happened is we were coming out of Covid and obviously whilst I've always believed in actually hybrid working

And we really had changed the way that we'd worked. We'd all been at home. We were all working remotely. And whilst I accept that there are businesses out there that can't move to this, clearly the Curve Group, we'd been operating for a couple of years and very successfully remotely. And we needed to really analyse and look at the way that we were working and how could we actually get the best lessons from COVID-19.

but actually to sort of actually improve. And we really decided that actually by doing a 35-hour working week and what that is, is people can choose their own flexible work pattern

Why that's better than the four-day working week is it does allow parents, and let's face it, a lot of it is mums, so female workers,

female employees to actually choose their way of working. And that allows some people to do the school drop off and pick up, but work five days. Other people do choose to condense their days to four days and work longer hours. And it just really means that they can sort of choose, you know, people that are having parents to look after, you know, you can really sort of

depending on your own personal circumstances get the best 35 hours that you can do provided we can still provide a service to the clients so if you've got a client facing well obviously we can't get you working from 12 midnight to 4am but in the 35 hour it's really to sort of work out your own your own working pattern. And how does that work in terms of salary are people paid for

On kind of a pro-watch for 35 hours or how did you figure that out? They are paid for 35 hours. For part-time workers, it's one of the things that people need to, employers need to consider when taking this on. What it actually meant is that some of my part-time workers actually got a pay increase because

because it is on a pro rata basis. And so we talk about hours now. So holidays are not holidays. They're actually holiday hours because depending on your work pattern and your flexibility, it's not just having a day off.

it's about how many hours you are taking off depending on your working week. So that's a little bit of a complication, but one that's worth doing. But it's a little bit of a complication that you can get. And when considering moving to a 35-hour working week, if somebody was working 30 hours instead of 40 hours, if you think on a pro-rata basis, they actually needed a pay rise because – not for the part-time workers because they were –

technically increasing their hours. So how did you go about implementing this? Because it was then having to be a conversation with full-time employees and saying, look, we're going to reduce your salary very slightly. No, no, no, we didn't reduce anybody's salary. We just took five hours, reduced the working week by five hours. And that's why we needed to increase part-timers pay because it wouldn't have been fair and equal. The reality is we've seen no downturn in productivity.

And therefore, actually, there was no hit, but people just took a reduction in their hours. And that's why the part-time has got an increase in their pay. So just to be super clear, you went down to a reduced 35-hour working week. Salaries remained the same for full-time employees. They were worked out then for people who are part-time. And because of the pro-waters, some people actually got a pay rise. How does that work if people...

take a day off or how does that all all the technicalities of it work yeah I mean you really do need to plan for the change um and

uh, the client coverage was one that we really had to, uh, work out. Um, and, uh, you know, I, I know it's an overused word, but communication is absolutely key here. Um, getting your managers buy-in and your clients buy-in into what you are doing, um, took quite a bit of communication as to the reasons why we were doing it. Um, uh, uh, uh,

them understanding that there was going to be no downturn in productivity, performance, service levels, et cetera, et cetera. And what's interesting is, is that our clients have been massively supportive, actually. Now, whether I'm just really lucky with that, I've got some absolutely superb customers or whether we've just done a really good job. And then when I say we, it's the team, not me, have done a really good job. And

You know, that was a real key thing that we had to focus on. I think the other thing is the holiday calculation. So we actually did this mid-year.

And it was tremendously difficult to work out because of the hours of holiday to try and work out what people had as a remaining holiday. And that whole calculation was really, really difficult. So my advice to somebody if they're thinking about doing this is do it at the end of the holiday year rather than mid-holiday.

Obviously, we had an additional cost that we had to take on in terms of the part time working hours and just really ensuring that you've got your leadership support. One of the things that we had to really work out was meetings.

Because meetings where you wanted teams to attend, of course, everybody's got different working hours now. And finding times when people can all come together that means that everybody's there just takes a little bit more working through. So those are some of the things that we sort of had to take on board. And, you know, one thing that's not terribly popular, but I am going to say it is because of the government wanting to bring this right to switch off.

One of the things I have had to sort of ask of my team is flexibility in return because life happens. And if a customer has got...

a need or a sort of a real problem we need to be able to sort of respond to that and I'm very lucky with the team that I have in that that they will respond when and if times are difficult with my clients and sort of need to provide a little bit of flexibility. And as you say it's that it's that mutual flexibility isn't it and people want to show up for their clients because they've

They've got an environment where they want to perform because they're being treated well and being treated fairly. And they've got this amazing opportunity in terms of a reduced working week. I mean, you've mentioned a couple of times that there's been no impact to productivity and performance. Can we dig into that a bit? Because I think a lot of fear of business owners is going to be that dip in productivity, performance, quality of work.

What was that shift like? What did you notice? It was a great leap of faith. Of course it was. And, you know, I did speak to a number of people

I'm a great believer in asking for help and sort of before making a big decision, asking people that quite frankly better than myself, their advice on things. And yeah, it was a great, you know, I really did have to take a big, deep breath. And, you know, before sort of moving to this and interestingly, we talked about trialing it.

And we, and this is where the naughtiness comes in, is we decided that actually it's not very authentic doing a trial because people don't really trust that it's going to last.

And if you want to move to this and you want to get your team behind you, actually trialling it is kind of the wrong message. It's like, we don't really trust you. You know, it's all of the things that sort of I don't believe in and is not necessarily very authentic leadership.

I've always been this type of leader that is theory Y rather than theory X. I know this is quite an old theory, but, you know, it still is true that I absolutely measure performance on outputs. I trust people to get a job done. And about treating people about how you'd like to be treated yourself, quite frankly. Okay.

And don't get me wrong, it sounds like it's a really fluffy place to be. It really isn't. You know, the Curb group, we have services to deliver, we have KPIs to attend to and make sure that we perform or else, you know, we'll be out of business. You know, let's be clear. But...

If you're true to that, that means that your team are also true to that. And therefore, the outputs are the same and we've seen no dip in performance whatsoever. There are other things that we have had to work harder on, but the performance isn't one of them that we've worried about. Has there been any downsides then in terms of business outcomes? No.

Not in terms of business outcomes. The things that we've had to work a lot harder on is, so leadership style. So there's a new statistic out that 80% of employees don't feel engaged with their employer anymore.

What I don't want to do is attract people that want to work 35 hours because it's a nice place to be and actually they don't demand very much. What I want is a 35-hour working week where everybody's absolutely committed to the curve group, to our aim and our purpose and to transforming working lives.

and ensuring that you do that with people that are working on different shifts, making sure that you've got coverage of your team, making sure that people are held accountable for the job that they do, that we don't over-parent. I think leadership and parenting is two different things. It's really ensuring that there is the flexibility and that engagement. And if you're not careful, people...

have a reticence to want to come into work. And you've got to make the workplace a really nice place so that people do still want to come in and not be just totally remote. Because I think there's an awful lot of learning and development that needs to take place and learning from each other. And actually memories being created. One of my absolutely gorgeous finance managers that's just recently retired said,

And it took her out for her, you know, retirement dinner kind of thing. And all of the memories that she was recounting were around the Curve group and when we were having things together. And I think there's a real importance of making the workplace a fun environment that people are creating memories that you have that. I talk quite often about the Curve family. And it's about creating that environment when you've got people working very, very flexibly. Yeah.

and remotely at times. After this very short break, we're going to learn more about what is working at Curve for Jeanette and some of the pitfalls you can avoid when you implement this in your own workplace.

Welcome back. Let's rejoin Leanne and Jeanette. How have you found this shift has impacted things like your retention, the number of applications you get when you advertise a job? In terms of talent, has it helped you retain and attract talent? Oh my God, yes. So, you know, I think anybody that thinks that pay is the only thing that motivates people, that is just, it's so archaic and

And I'm talking now just not just for the curve group. I'm talking for because we do recruitment as part of our service offering, you know, customers that can provide a fantastic employee value proposition and can pay a fair wage, but also provide flexibility. They're the ones that get the true talent.

without question and um at the curb group you know um being able to attract retention and retain our people um is so key uh to our growth plans and if i tell you that uh my leadership team have got an average of um over eight years service each uh it kind of shows you um uh

that it does work um and um and that has so many rewards you know for your customers um you know it means that you can have true graduate programs where people can come up and through and to meet your growth plans but you know at the top end you know the customers are getting the same interaction consistently with people that are true truly dedicated to not only them employer but the sort of our whole aim really and and i do believe that that's down to

you know significantly down to the 35 hour working week and people need to listen to they need to be able to balance um their work and their life and um you know being authentic around that I know I keep using that word authentic but you know you know I you know I want a work life as well and it's very very traditional um to think that you know

And actually, that's a piece of advice I would give to people. Be careful when you implement these things that you're then not then still doing the 60 hours a week, because actually it gives people an unconscious bias towards feeling that,

Whilst I've got a 35 hour working week, actually, the only way I'm going to get on is by doing 60 hours. So, you know, I've had to sort of be quite disciplined myself as well to make sure that I'm leading by example. You say that role modelling is so important, isn't it, in leadership? I mean, how have you, have you seen any impacts on the individual employees in terms of their wellbeing, their work-life balance, how they're showing up to work? Is there anything you've noticed at an individual level that's happening after this shift?

Absolutely. I mean, yeah.

I'm sure those listeners who have children out there know just how expensive childcare is and the ability to enable people to sort of look after their children without it costing them an arm and a leg and a torso, quite frankly, is one sort of just very sort of just one part of our workforce that has had a big, big difference. But, you know, for me,

for generations that are more mature, you know, the ability to be able to have on their... I'm just giving you some of the feedback, you know, be able to go and play golf on a Friday so that they're then spending time with their family on a Saturday and Sunday while still having their hobby is...

You know, that's worth a huge amount to people. We do employee opinion survey within the curve group. And whilst there's not been a drastic change in our overall EVP, we do a question that is, what would you stop? What would you start? And what would you continue?

In the continue, the 35-hour working week flexibility always comes up as something that they want us to continue with. We're seeing a lot of the opposite. We're seeing, you know, Google saying, oh, we want a 60-hour work week, demanding people get back into the office. The curve group operates on a hybrid policy.

so much coming out the complete opposite and that's what's needed for performance for productivity for collaboration for innovation where do you stand on these arguments how do you feel about these these opinions coming out into the world the listeners will not be surprised in the fact that i um

don't condone it i think it's exactly the opposite of what we want and actually it's not what i'm seeing in my clients actually um whether it's just because we are uk centric i think there is a global um issue here um uh but the reality is is um

With five, soon to be six generations of workforce coming in and talents becoming more and more difficult to attract and retain, my advice is any employer that is, the media are calling this masculine energy person,

you know, you're not going to attract the best talent and you're not going to retain them. And actually, we talk about authentic leadership. People will nod at you and say, yes, yes, yes. But actually, underneath it all, they will become more and more distant and not engaged with you. And that's exactly the opposite to what you

you really want um and just on that sort of masculine energy piece you know anything that sort of uh alienates any part of your workforce um is not is not good um you know what we want is high eq um from our leaders um and um

you know anything that's sort of condoning a 60-hour working week where people can't get a work-life balance quite frankly we get burnout sickness as a result etc etc you know the HR implications just go on and on and on and I think it's forcing our government's hand to sort of bring in some rather difficult and things that I quite fear um and

employment practices because we've got the shift to people going to the 60-hour working week, asking people to work more and more hours, etc., etc.,

Jeanette, what changes are the government bringing in and why are you afraid of them? Can you give us an example of maybe something that's coming in? So they're bringing employment rights from day one, which means that people can't get rid of people. They used to think that you can get rid of people in the probationary period and in the first two years of service because they can't take them to tribunal.

the Labour government are bringing in that they have rights, full employment rights from day one. They are bringing more stringent

yet again more stringent policies around contract working. They are bringing in the right switch off which means that people have to they only have to work when they're engaged to work and they don't have to work outside of those that flexibility. So those are just sort of three just right off the top of my head and things that they're bringing in so and I can see why they are doing that because I

uh uk has got traditionally um one of the worst um working hour weeks of um the whole of europe so i can see why they're sort of trying to bring it in but it's not necessarily the best way of doing it and is that because you think it's going to take away from the ability of employers business owners to build in this flexibility or because kind of for for people listening they might be thinking why is that bad because

Because I should have my rights from day one and I should be able to switch off after work. What is the downside of these types of policies coming in? What we need is good employers that treat their employees well and do a fair working week and don't force people to work long and hard.

you know, long and difficult hours. The employment rights from day one, what I'm super concerned about is people making recruitment decisions. It's a difficult decision because you sort of wanted to engage with somebody and the cost of hiring somebody is high anyway. I think it could have a very discriminatory effect on the workforce. People will hire in their own model, not actually hiring.

taking a chance on bringing a different individual, perhaps somebody that has a disability, and it just does alienate certain parts of our workforce. And that I really worry about as a nation. I think there's a lot of untapped potential out there, but I can see that employers will take a risk because

if it goes wrong they have no ability to be able to change. I think that's a really interesting point of view because it's understandable isn't it business owners would be fearful of making those decisions for that potential consequence. I mean it's

Everything you've said, it speaks so much to your values as a leader, the values of the Curve Group. Can you maybe just give us a bit of an insight into that in terms of this shift to a reduced working week, everything you said about authentic leadership and empowering people? What are the values of Curve Group and how does all this fit into it? We would love to be the go-to provider of HR.

and recruitment services to our chosen markets, which is sort of that 100 to 3,000 employees range.

We love helping organisations and transforming working lives. I always say to the team, we're not doctors and nurses. We don't save lives. But actually, and the whole Maslow's hierarchy of needs, what people do for a job, and they spend a lot of time at work, let's face it, even at 35 hours, it's still a lot of time that you spend at work. And what you do within that is,

you know, can make a massive difference on how you live and feel about your life. And we're all different. And, you know, just I have got so many examples of where we've helped individuals save their marriages because we've given them three or four thousand pounds more increase because we've recruited them to a new job and they've, you know, they've been able to take the family on holiday.

um or you know we've actually dealt uh with what has been a very difficult um situation um

terms of an employee and the employer not agreeing on things and sort of managing that scenario to a successful conclusion between the employer and employee. You know, that's life changing. That is really important. And as I say, you know, I've met people that have, you know, done a nice reference for in the past that

That has meant that they've gone on to sort of have a full career and get out of quite an abusive relationship. I mean, and it goes on. What we do is so important. And anybody that people always say to me, what makes what? Why do people not work out in the curve group? And it's where they don't take seriously this idea.

I am going to transform this person's working life. And it might be helping a line manager through a different difficult situation and helping organizations grow very quickly and effectively. Or it can be sort of dealing ethically with having to make redundancies and a big change or if there's been a big acquisition that we've

you know helped and ensure that that's gone effectively and really really smoothly it's it's it's life-changing it's human beings every situation is different and doing it in a really professional uh way that where you actually care is kind of what we're about i'm honestly getting a bit emotional today and it's it's because there's

There's so much noise out there at the moment, so much nonsense that we can't be commercially minded, we can't be entrepreneurial and treat people like human beings. You know, it's not about the decisions that are made in terms of layoffs, it's how that's done ethically. I mean, you mentioned the masculine energy. I mean, do you think gender influences this approach or is it really just a philosophy of the business? I mean, in terms of that...

leadership practice, particularly in the HR industry where we do typically see more women. Is that a factor or is it

Is it something else? So there's two parts of the organisation. We've got HR and we've got recruitment. Now, a lot of people say recruitment is HR and I kind of get that, but it's very different skill sets. And traditionally, the recruitment industry is actually quite male dominated. And you're absolutely right. The HR side is a lot more female orientated.

I don't think gender has anything to play for it actually at all. Um, I've always been a bit rubbish about being a female leader, if I'm honest. Um, and, um,

it's very much about being who you are forging your own path having the courage to do so I've been very very lucky in having some good role models um along the way you know it for me it's about examine who you are examine what you're achieve wanting to achieve and what is important um

get better people that are better at doing their job around you um that could do the job and then really appreciate what they are doing and what they are achieving and i mean proper

properly appreciate it, learn together, ask lots of questions, get lots of regular feedback and properly listen to it. And just constantly recognise that it's not easy. It isn't easy. If it was easy, a lot more people would do it. We're seeing an increase in the next generations not wanting and wishing to become leaders. And whilst that's okay,

And I have always appreciated that people, you know, there's absolute technical ability that should be rewarded. Traditionally, people go into leadership roles so they can earn more money. I think there's a real problem with us. I worry why people are not wanting to go into leadership roles and actually when it can be massively rewarding.

I'm bound to say that after 20 years, right? But it can be massively rewarding. And I just really want our next generations to sort of see that. And I worry that it's not that we're not training them well enough and that we're not being good enough role models. And I worry for industry that we're not going to have people that will be able to give people a nice working life because they've not got decent leaders.

and so that's a sort of a general thing but I don't think gender has anything to do with it really. So there's probably other leaders listening who are like Jeanette I'm with you I'm this type of leader I'm this type of entrepreneur and business owner I'd love to go to a four-day work week I'm a bit fearful what advice would you give them? How are you going to get

the very best employee value proposition what can you offer your very best talent and what does that look like so it might be a four-day working week it might be flexible working it might be some remote working it might be coming into the office only two days a week and

Find what's going to give you the edge in order to attract and retain the very best people, because that is something that we have absolutely benefited from 100%.

I think then ask for help if you are going to move towards it from people that have done it before. We do have a full programme of how to move to the four day working week. I'm not saying necessarily ask for help from us, but, you know, we can help with that because you need to think through all of the implications and ensure that you've absolutely...

absolutely thought through all of those implications that you're meeting them head on, you know, everything from your communication, the increase potentially of payroll costs, the calculation of holidays,

through to ensuring that your client coverage is not affected, that your productivity is in place, that you measure the performance, deal with meetings, deal with your employee engagement is kind of top level advice that I would give. But all I can say is it is worth it. Have you seen any of your clients that you work with kind of going, oh, talk to us about?

this yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah and we have helped some organizations move to it um things that sort of we can get wrong are things like you know um global time zones can be difficult where people are sort of got teams that are working sort of from you know sort of uh east west kind of thing and making sure that that's all covered um

where organizations don't get the true buy-in um from um their leaders and that they don't understand about the unconscious bias uh working really really hard and sort of giving pain lip service one but actually then you know doing another thing in practice um uh you know and i

I think there is something around still. The whole programming of your HR system is something that people quite often forget because, you know, if you're not having day holidays, you know, you need to reprogram your HR system in order to make sure that that goes and just make sure that that sort of communication is in place. If you're not going to be in the office as much because it's a four-day working week and the days don't cross with your leader, sometimes we can get a bit of unconscious bias on promotions sometimes.

because it's easier to promote the people that you see and spend the most time with, whereas actually you've got a whole workforce that you need to consider and make sure that it's ethically done and that the best people are being attracted for the best jobs, not just the ones that are in your line of sight. So that's another sort of thing that can

can happen if you're not careful and if you don't think through the implications of the four-day working week and what do you think are maybe some of the the misconceptions that other business owners might have about the four-day work week or a reduced working week yeah i think do you know it's about the productivity um and um uh it's the control you know um i think um

Let's face it, before COVID, you know, we were talking about these things. We were talking about being working more remotely, being able to give people a lot more of a much better work-life balance and things. What COVID did was actually dispel those myths.

because it happened and you know what we all survived didn't we we might have not thrived but we certainly survived and um i think there is a real nervousness what what i see is with every generation it dispelling a little bit more um and sort of the knowledge that actually there are different ways that you can work and that work-life balance is important um

And just the, you know, it's understanding that if somebody's happy in their workplace because their life is in a place where they can cope a lot better, and let's face it, life is difficult, isn't it, in modern day society? It really is. You're going to have a more productive and a much happier workforce and therefore you're

everything that every interaction and every intervention that they have is so much more productive. And I go to customers and they're literally on their knees. And you just think if any curve representative was going,

into a customer looking like they're on the knees, that they are exhausted, that they're worn down by life and work. That is not, that's not leading by example. You know, put your money where your mouth is. We're an HR and recruitment provider. We've got to lead by example on that and stop worrying about people being

not delivering because you think that you're sort of leading by a stick rather than a carrot. I have been very lucky in that I've worked for some great bosses. I've also worked for some incredibly difficult bosses as well. And my, I would say to anybody that's sort of grown their career is take, take the best out of both because you will learn as much from the bad ones as you will the good. And this is where I think I've been quite lucky. Um,

as a female is that I've never had a problem in asking for feedback and advice um and if you truly listen to that I think it enables you to learn um about yourself but also the the leader that you want to be um I've got to 55 now and um

It's almost taken me a long time to find my own voice, but I'm now very strong. I'm very confident about that, but it's because I've had great people around me all the way through. But I've

spent a lot of time analysing that and not just going to work, working hard and hoping that the outcome will be okay. You know, what you put in, you get out 100%, but it's how you do it, not what you do, isn't it? And what do you want to be remembered for? What do you want the Curve Group to be remembered for? Transforming working lives. We've really promoted within the Curve Group to share feedback and

And, you know, we often boom out, like things that have gone well within the organisation. And I personally thank people when we get these great testimonials in, you know, and it can be just from a candidate saying, I've had a great experience. You've held my hand all the way through. And by the way, let's don't get me started on AI and recruitment. But anyway...

I can't see that anybody's going to join an organisation that's not had contact with a human being. But anyway, there we go. That's another whole topic. Sort of giving a candidate a job is just one of the most wonderful things you can get. Helping an HR director that has got so...

so many uh difficult and complex tasks to do in every single day um helping them with you know their career making them look good to their board when we're constantly being battered and we're just being asked to do more and more and more with less and less and fewer and fewer resources um is you know is is it makes me feel good when we've really helped somebody

with that. And finally, helping organisations grow and realise their dreams. And many of the organisations that we service, you know, can't do it without their employee population. And if we can enable them to do that really, really well, that's what I want to be. What are you currently working on? Is there anything you're always kind of on your top of your list to improve, to innovate, to change? It's getting HR

our directors and CPOs to really understand that they can't be generalists.

um because the role of hr is so complex and so complicated you know in the past you know if you if you looked after your employees you paid them you did decent administration did a bit learning development and you recruited people that that was sufficient now you have to be a data expert you've got to be a systems and ai and technology expert you've got to be organizational design you've got to be

employee relations expert, you've got to be a financial planner, mental health expert and with that varied approach

uh very varied and complex services you can't be a generalist and an expert in all and work out what what i wish to do is uh get my cpo population to work out where where their strengths are and then ask for help where um the where they don't have it so that they can um

be truly representative in the boardroom. And they should be in that boardroom. Absolutely. I heard a really disappointing stat the other day that, um,

that more and more HR directors are now post-COVID. So during COVID, they were all invited back into the ballroom and now there's a move away from that. And that's really very disappointing because... And not one that I've seen a huge amount of evidence about, I must say, because the customers...

we work for do value HR or else they won't be engaging with us, right? But it's, you know, as the world gets more complex, having a really good HR strategy that engages everybody is really, really valuable. Absolutely. It baffles me how that isn't just obvious that you'd need to have HR director, chief people officer involved

at the right hand of a CEO, particularly as you say, the complexity of the working world that we're now in. Yeah, I think I'm speaking more generally and not about my customers. It's because HR people, because of, and I am talking quite UK-centric, so apologies for the global providers out there that are listening, is that with all the complexity that's coming in, HR directors are actually having to say no. Yeah.

And they're having to make the boardroom, you know, deal with a lot more governance and compliance, which is quite frankly not exciting. It's not the sexy stuff of business and they're having to say no and they don't like that. And so if we can find ways so that the HR directors can really concentrate on

business development, top talent, engagement skills, forward forecasting so that you've got people in anticipation.

ahead of the needs of the organisation and not getting dragged down into the weeds of administration, compliance, employee handbooks, policies and procedures that are up to date with the new legislation that's coming out. If we can help with that, that's where I think we can really add value and get our HR directors back into the boardroom.

And in terms of the future of work, I have to bring it back to the core of our conversation, the four-day work week, reduced working week. Is it the future? Is it a trend? What are your thoughts? Absolutely. I think any employers that are wanting to attract, you know, I've heard some of our recruiters sort of really challenged when they're taking a brief on, you know,

So you're wanting somebody in the office five days, 42 hour working week. You want them in the office for five day working week. Well, you know, good luck with that. Yeah.

You know, you're not going to attract the best talent. And even if you do, they're not going to stay with you very long because there are other employers out there that are going to be able to offer this. And guess what? They will leave there, you know, unless you can make it so compelling. That was a brilliant Jeanette Ramsden from The Curve Group. As you would have heard, I did get a bit emotional during that interview. It's so wonderful to speak to such an authentic person

inspiring leader who just

gets it. And more than that, I've spoken to a number of Jeanette's team in setting up this interview and everyone is amazing, hardworking, inspired, passionate, everything that you'd expect from an organisation that is led by such an incredible CEO. If you are also inspired by what you've heard today, I would really encourage you to go and find and follow Jeanette on LinkedIn, where she regularly shares insights on modern workplace

workplace practices. And if you're a business leader considering how a four-day work week might function in your organisation, the Curve Group actually offer consultancy services to help other companies just like yours navigate this kind of transformation. Curve Group also

also offers a variety of free webinars and insights packs I will leave the link to that in the show notes as well if you have enjoyed this episode then think about subscribing wherever you get your podcasts or if you're on YouTube click that subscribe button and what do they always say ring the bell or something I don't know it's going to be cheesy don't ring the bell it's really cheesy just subscribe that's fine but also think about just what would really help us if you shared it somewhere either privately with someone who you think might benefit from it or just put a post on LinkedIn tag us in and we'll share your post with our lovely listeners we will and we also

see you on Tuesday for our regular episode with our weekly news roundup, our spicy hot take and our world famous workplace surgery where I'll put your questions to me. That's all for now. Bye. Bye bye. Bye bye.