let's talk about this cuz I think we're going to have a big debate at the table right now A bill introduced in the California legislature aiming to establish what they're calling quote the right to disconnect for employees granting them protection from after hours work rated Communications joining us to talk about that the push for a 4-day work week in today's jobs data is Alan Gino corn faery Vice chairman good morning to you let's let's talk about California so California is effectively saying
if this bill were to pass that a boss would not be allowed to call you after hours send you an email or at least expect a response during those hours unless it was NE pre-negotiated as part of your own contract or a Union contract what do you think of this Allen Andrew not not surprised and uh you know we could debate this in terms of you know whether you're a free marketer or whether you believe in government uh oversight of uh Workforce activities I mean there's a history of of really relevan
t ones going back to orisa we certainly have a minimum wage there are plenty of places where government involvement is not let's just say um overly intrusive this one's interesting but I really think it goes to the core of something much bigger preco um the world of work had gotten so frenetic that quite frankly if we didn't have covid I suspect within a decade uh the work environment would have broken anyway we were operating at 7,000 RPM I was saying that work actually was life life is somethi
ng something that happened on the way to and from work so this bill actually is just an indication of trying to Grapple with this issue that work is 247 and that leaders may not quite know how to manage that because they actually have time requirements to deliver and so sometimes they are basically asking their people to be on 247 Alan if we're moving and again let's just say we're talking about white collar workers it's it's it's it's a specific subset of the workforce for the most part that we
're discussing here unfortunately those who are blue collar workers and emergency responders and others are not it's not that they're not covered by this but it's not it's a separate issue for those who plan to or think that they are going towards a 4-day work week or a flexible Work Week where you can do your work at all sorts of hours frankly which I think a lot of people think is actually a great benefit it's it's no longer that you have to sit in the office on the weekend uh because that's w
here the phone and the computer are you can do it because you have your phone and frankly you can sit online at Disney and some people think that they can still take the call and do their work and get what's what's supposed to happen done I'm not sure I I mean this law so maybe I I understand the the conceit of it sort of gets to me is that OD the right word but gets it is at odds with the future of a more flexible work work environment in many ways no it certainly does contradict that and and y
ou know let's face it these things are really going to be driven by by the individual and their boss and and there's a lot of there's a lot of of data now postco and even certainly during Co around the productivity increases that came from being remote and being able to have a flexible work environment going to work at 10: a.m. getting stuff done taking time off from 5: to 7:30 and then pounding it out really hard again at 10 o'clock at night people loved that it worked for them um the only thin
g that's really been damaged by remote work in my view is the idea of of early career growth and collaboration among colleagues there's a real benefit to being together in the same space as human beings face to face in the workforce so I'm 100% with you bottom line personal view I I don't know that this solves anything from a legislation standpoint it's all about leadership it's all about the contract between the employee and their boss and how they're going to do what they need to do that's bes
t for them in their career and best for the organization and I think the bigger question I would have coming out of this is what's the difference if you're a salaried worker or an hourly worker I mean if you're saying that you can't can't be contacted outside of these business hours doesn't that lead to the idea of you should be an hourly worker then well that's an interesting point too Becky I mean I think the point here is that it's just got to be somewhere between work being 247 and work bein
g 8 hours or 40 hours a week so it's certainly not 40 hours a week if you're white collar no it's not and there are instances where employers take it too far and they expect you to be on call all hours there are bosses who are idiots but your your solution to that is to be able to quit as an employee and walk away and say forget it I'm not working for you that there you go exactly I mean bottom line is employees rule that's my motto for the next 20 years they vote with their feet they go and and
they will be committed to organizations that suit them and that's why it's it's all about leadership let me ask you this though there's part of me that's you know once I sort of read the bill and understood it and understood that effectively what they're saying is look the Baseline is that there'll be this disconnect rule but you know if you take a job I imagine they'll put it in the contract and say we can call you at all hours and if you sign the contract or the union signs the contract and s
ays that that's the policy arounds around the law then you know but the the that the Baseline in in the in California is that we're you know we're not going to have a culture like that I wasn't you know I don't love the overreach and I don't know what it means if for example every state in America were to try to adopt a policy like this but at the same time I would imagine everyy would put it in their contract and that would be the end of it again there's always a workaround especially when you
know it's a legislative intrusion into the free market so you're absolutely right it is going to boil down again to that contract paper contract or or just uh understandment an understanding between the employee and the employer like there this really goes to this whole point that soft skills are the future and you don't need legislation if you have good leaders and you have good employees that are aligned 95% or 85% of Career Success is around soft skills self-awareness teamwork organizational
awareness managing up adaptability so laws aside if someone doesn't exercise those key competencies they're not going to have a great career and if a leader can't get that out of his or her people they're they're not going to be a highly productive leader because 85% of Career Success I want to talk jobs number just for for one second but before that I want to talk AI for just half half a second you talked about soft skills I spent unfortunately yesterday probably something like three or 4 hours
um probably in a soft skills on the computer uh basically just ping ponging email with people to schedule things to resched things and move other things to set up another me like ba basic stuff to be honest with you and you could argue an assistant could have done it or something like that but where I was going to go with this is I imagine I will have a bot that will be doing a lot of this very very soon I I hope I pray that that's the case but at the same time I wonder what it will mean when w
e have a jobs number on a Friday in the future well yes so right what higher order work uh is going to be where the job creation will be the lower order work that you just described there software out there right now that kind of does what you talked about I wouldn't call it a bot but it's software that will help with the calendaring stuff so it wasn't just calendaring it was sending Nice Notes to certain people it was moving something around it you know it's it's it's what by the way managers o
ften do and I wonder how you know whether Bots will be managing other people or it will be Bots managing the other Bots you're gonna have Bots managing people interaction you're have Bots managing Bots and you're hopefully going to have higher order work for people that will like every other you know significant uh uh disruptive or evolutionary technology that's entered the workforce since the Industrial Revolution is going to make work better for people but that's that's a bigger debate in anot
her call and would love to do it in terms of the jobs number I'm just going to say surprise to the upside above 250 my call anyway
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