Forget the old concept of the 9-5. Companies around the world are redesigning the work week to increase efficiency, health and happiness in their workers.

A growing number of businesses are shortening their working week to address problems with low productivity, poor mental health and unequal working opportunities. Workers are still paid the same salary for a four-day week and the results are revolutionary.

In Shorter, bestselling author Alex Pang studies these trailblazing businesses where managers are reporting their teams to be:

- More creative in their problem solving
- Happier and with lower stress and anxiety and cases of burn out
- More productive

Pang will reveal step by step, how they have gone about making these changes, the challenges and solutions and, most importantly, how you can do the same.

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, PhD, has spent two decades studying people, technology, and the worlds they make. A Silicon Valley-based futurist and consultant, he has worked with gov- ernments and Fortune 500 companies; spoken at venues ranging from CIA headquarters to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre to the Googleplex; and held academic positions at Stanford and Oxford universities. His last book, Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, is available in a dozen languages. Follow @askpang on Twitter and Instagram, or visit strategy.rest.

This is one of the most hopeful books I have read about the state of modern work. In Shorter, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang shares not only the stories of the creatives and visionaries around the world who are pushing back against always-on burnout culture, but he gives a practical, step-by-step guide for how they did it, why it matters-for all of us-and how others can follow their lead. A must-read for anyone who cares about the now or the future of work (Brigid Schulte, award-winning journalist, author of the New York Times bestselling Overwhelmed: Work, Love & Play when No One has the Time, and director of The Better Life Lab at New America)

It's time to question everything we think we know about work, starting with how long we need to do it. Shorter makes a strong case for working less, showing us how any business can profit from giving their workers more free time. Pang provides a step-by-step guide for leaders who are ready to liberate their people from the tyranny of the 40-hour work week (Carmen Medina, coauthor of Rebels at Work and former director of the CIA?s Center for the Study of Intelligence.)

Who said a full workweek has to be five days? What if less is actually more? In Shorter, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang inspires us with a powerful vision: A shorter, but more productive and enjoyable workweek. I hope this book sparks a revolution in how-and how much-we work! (Valorie Burton, founder and CEO of the Coaching and Positive Psychology (CaPP) Institute and bestselling author of Successful Women Think Differently)