Dreaming in Colour: Decent Work, Bold Possibility, and the Futures We’re Still Building

By Paul Taylor & Laëtitia Eyssartel, former non-profit leaders and founders of Evenings & Weekends Consulting

Sometimes it’s important to pause and reflect on changes that we have seen or been a part of. There was a time, not all that long ago, when many workplace nonprofit practices now increasingly seen as reasonable, humane, or even necessary were dismissed as absolutely unrealistic. Examples of this include pay transparency, liveable wages, paid interviews, and the 4-day work week.

And yet, slowly, collectively, persistently, people organized, advocated, experimented, negotiated, unionized, pushed, challenged assumptions, and imagined something better.

Some of those people were workers quietly advocating within their organizations, or staff teams refusing to accept burnout as the inevitable cost of meaningful work, others were nonprofit leaders trying to do things differently. Many of them took risks, some were even pushed out of their jobs or faced ostracization if they managed to remain. So many of those folks were told no, but many kept going anyway. They developed podcasts, appeared as guests on podcasts or spoke to the media about the importance of centering decent work.

We want to begin by saying thank you. Thank you to everyone who has championed decent work over the years. To those who pushed conversations forward long before they were popular. To those who believed that healthier workplaces and stronger organizations were not competing goals, but interconnected ones. Things are definitely not perfect, but we have come a long way together.

Today, conversations about living wages, four-day work weeks, burnout prevention, psychological safety, workplace equity, flexible schedules, pay transparency, and employee wellness are happening in ways that would have felt almost impossible even a decade ago.

Not every organization is there yet. Not every worker experiences these changes equally. There is still profound inequity across workplaces in the sector, but the conversation has shifted and continues to shift. That shift happened because people dared to believe that better was possible.

At Evenings & Weekends Consulting, our commitment to decent work has always been rooted in that belief.

We’ve tried to embed those values not only in what we recommend to others, but in how we operate ourselves:

• a four-day work week,

• paid interview processes,

• benefits that begin immediately,

• adopting living wages,

• prioritizing and encouraging rest through unlimited vacation

• pay transparency,

• and flexibility.

Not because we think we have everything figured out. We absolutely do not. But because we believe organizations should continually ask themselves: “What would it look like to care for people more courageously?”. And perhaps more importantly: “What new possibilities become available when we stop treating harmful workplace norms as inevitable?”

As we look ahead, we find ourselves thinking less about what feels “realistic” and more about what futures are worth building toward together.

So here are five dreams we hope organizations, workers, leaders, funders, unions, and communities continue exploring with courage and imagination.

1. Designing work around human energy, not industrial-era schedules

The standard 9-to-5 workday was not designed around human wellbeing, creativity, caregiving, disability justice, or deep focus. What if organizations experimented more boldly with nonlinear workdays? Imagine workplaces with core collaboration hours for meetings, less meetings and more protected deep work time, greater flexibility for caregivers, more autonomy around energy management and schedules designed around outcomes and sustainability rather than visibility and presenteeism. For many people, the future of work may not simply be “remote” or “hybrid.” It may be fundamentally more human.

2. Making learning and growth a guaranteed workplace right

Too often, professional development becomes something reserved for senior leaders or staff with privilege, flexibility, and organizational proximity. What if every organization committed a percentage of its annual budget, even 1% to 2%, specifically toward accessible learning, growth, and leadership development for all staff? Not just conferences for executives or leadership pipelines for a select few, but real investment in people’s growth across every level of an organization. Imagine what organizations could become if curiosity and learning were treated as infrastructure rather than perks.

3. Replacing “Sick Days” with cultures of ongoing wellness

Many workplaces still operate as though rest only becomes legitimate once someone is already depleted, overwhelmed, unwell or even worse, burnt out. What if we normalized wellness days instead of waiting for burnout, stress, grief, caregiving exhaustion, or illness to force people to stop? If the legislation refuses to change with us, we could call them wellness/sick days until our legislators recognize that we shouldn’t have to wait until we are sick to prioritize our health and well-being. The future of decent work cannot simply be about surviving work with slightly better coping strategies. It should include cultures that actively support wellness, balance, joy, rest and humanity.

4. Treating worker voice and unionization as healthy, not threatening

One of the more uncomfortable truths in some organizations is that they often publicly champion justice while resisting workers organizing internally. We believe there is room for a different conversation. What if employers actively supported workers voices, collective bargaining rights, and healthy unionization efforts as part of building accountable workplaces? What if organizational leadership viewed organized workers not as adversaries, but as partners in shaping healthier, more equitable institutions?

5. Measuring retention through care, not just exit interviews

Some organizations spend energy trying to understand why people leave. Far fewer invest meaningful time understanding why people stay. What if “stay interviews” became standard practice? Creating space for regular and intentional conversations that asked: What’s helping you thrive here? What’s making work harder than it needs to be? What systems need to change? What support would help you stay long-term? What support would help you transition to your next role (even if it’s at another organization or sector). Too often, organizations discover critical truths only after talented people have already walked out the door carrying their exhaustion, frustration and sometime burnout with them.

Continuing to dream in colour

One of the things we’ve learned over the years is that every meaningful workplace improvement once sounded unrealistic to someone, and yet, change keeps happening. It’s not even, quick enough or felt collectively, but change is happening. The future of decent work will not be built by one organization alone, and we certainly can’t wait for our politicians to lead the way. It will emerge through thousands of conversations, experiments, policies, negotiations, acts of courage, and collective demands for something better.

We hope organizations continue to dream bigger.
We hope funders continue to evolve.
We hope leaders continue to listen.
We hope workers continue organizing.
We hope sectors continue questioning assumptions that no longer serve people well.

Mostly, we hope we continue dreaming in colour together. Because a better world of work is not only imaginable. It is already being built.