Howdy HR friends!👋

Hope you’re all having a lovely Tuesday! We dropped coffee on our new keyboard this morning, so pardon any typos?! 🫠

Today we’re pondering deep work Wednesdays. A super simple concept that could guarantee your teams get more done in their week. And give their voices a little rest to boot!

No time to hang around so let’s spill the tea*.

*not on the keyboard this time…

🚦Coming up

In today’s edition

🧠 Why Deep Work Wednesdays Could Save Your Company's Soul

🛋️ The Break Room: Is your team ready to ban meetings one day a week?

📚 Human Readsources: Apple's HR leadership shakeup, Air Canada's strike impact on operations, and what HR needs to know about Workday's recent data breach.

💭Opening thoughts

It does everyone a break to snooze that calendar for a day…

Did you know that 76% of knowledge workers report struggling to find uninterrupted time for focused work?

And the average employee now spends 85% of their workweek in meetings, on email, and managing chat notifications?

That’s a lot time talking or discussing work, rather than you know….actually doing the work!

This “busy calendar” epidemic has led to companies implementing "Deep Work Wednesdays".

Completely meeting-free days dedicated to focused productivity

And when done right they’ve reported up to 32% higher project completion rates and significantly improved employee satisfaction scores.

So the question is, can we champion this structural change?

As Summer winds to a close, this could be the productivity hack to unlock get some serious work done before the end of 2025. Not just lots of Slacks and calls….

For easy reading

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Forward: Upskilling & Performance in the Age of AI

On September 10, 2025 | 10AM–2PM PT | Free Virtual Event

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Why Attend (see the full agenda here):

• Master the most urgent priorities: upskilling, AI adoption, change management, and people enablement.

• Learn from leaders shaping the future of work at Plaid, ZoomInfo, Amazon, Lattice, Docebo, and more.

• Leave with strategies you can put into action immediately.

Join 1,000+ HR and L&D leaders ready to future-proof their teams and lead with clarity in the AI-powered workplace.

🧠Let’s unpick

Why Deep Work Wednesdays Could Save Your Company's Soul

In today's notification-obsessed workplace, your team is drowning.

The average employee now spends 20% of their time in meetings, while constantly toggling between Slack, email, and that spreadsheet they actually need to finish.

No wonder everyone looks like zombies by Thursday afternoon! 🧟

Deep Work Wednesdays can be a serious mid week respite for your teams.

A dedicated meeting-free day for focused, high-value work. Could this be the antidote to our collective productivity crisis.

Becauase as we all know when our team are on top of their workload, the stress levels drift away.

And it’s not just a theory either.

Companies implementing this approach are seeing serious results.

Asana reported significant improvements in both output quality and employee satisfaction after establishing "No Meeting Wednesdays."

According to MOSTLY AI's employee handbook, their team found that "having one day a week dedicated to deep work has been a game-changer" for completing complex projects that require sustained concentration.

And with more machines and bots than ever to manage, a day to improve your processes and automations even more: is a day well spent.

So what can we try to get started?

Start by proposing a pilot program with clear metrics (project completion rates, employee satisfaction scores etc).

Prepare guidelines for what constitutes "deep work" versus "shallow work," and coach managers on protecting this time. Even going so far as to give them control over shared calendars and task lists.

Most importantly, lead by example by blocking your own calendar.

Your burned-out teams will thank you, and that elusive work-life balance might actually become possible.

You can read more at...

🔗 Deep Work: Focused Success in a Distracted World (HR Morning)

🔗 Deep Work Wednesdays: Reclaiming Productivity Through Meeting-Free Time (MOSTLY AI Employee Handbook)

🔗 Deep Work Wednesdays: Boosting Productivity in the Post-Pandemic Workplace (The Drum)

👀Too long didn’t read

TLDR

Dedicated meeting-free days create space for your team to do their most meaningful work without constant interruption.

Companies like Asana are already seeing the benefits, so consider piloting Deep Work Wednesdays before your employees burn out from notification overload!

🎬Lights, camera, action!

Takeaway and try

📅 Block off every Wednesday as "Deep Work Day" on your company calendars and establish a clear policy that meetings can only be scheduled in emergency situations.

🔄 Start with a 4-week pilot program where you track both quantitative metrics (project completion rates) and qualitative feedback to build your business case for permanent implementation.

📊 Survey your team about their biggest concentration barriers, then create custom deep work guidelines that specifically address these challenges in your workplace.

👩‍💼 Coach managers on how to model deep work behaviors by having them share what they accomplished during their distraction-free time in team check-ins.

🎯 Create a "Deep Work Success Board" where employees can post their major accomplishments from these focused days to build momentum and demonstrate tangible value.

☕The break room

What’s your take?

📚Additional reading

Human Readsources

👥 Apple Names First Chief People Officer (HR Grapevine) - Apple hires first Chief People Officer, reshuffles leadership roles.

✈️ Air Canada Strike Defies Return-to-Work Order (The HR Digest) - Air Canada strike disrupts flights despite return-to-work order.

💻 Workday Confirms Data Breach in Third-Party Database (TechCrunch) - Workday confirms data breach exposing personal information from third-party database.

That’s it for today.

Thanks for reading to the end and we hope today’s edition sparked some new ideas for your workplace! 🧠

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