What will humanity risk to keep our technology?
Iceland ran trials of a four-day work week from 2015-2019 in which workers were paid the same amount for shorter hours, and the results showed "overwhelming success," the BBC reports. According to researchers, productivity remained the same or improved in the majority of workplaces, and now 86% of Iceland's workforce have either moved to shorter hours for the same pay, or they will gain the right to.
The reports of workers feeling healthier and experiencing a better work-life balance while maintaining productivity, particularly in the public sector, is a huge step toward progressive change. Will Stronge, director of research at Autonomy, says, "It shows that the public sector is ripe for being a pioneer of shorter working weeks—and lessons can be learned for other governments." Spain, Finland, Japan, and many other countries have done trials as well.
According to How Stuff Works, it became the standard in the US with the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which was meant to improve conditions and pay for manufacturing workers. While it accomplished its goal, 40-hour workweeks became the default for most other jobs.
Putting in 40 hours does not guarantee work is getting done, nor does it guarantee proper working conditions, especially in the information age.
It’s gotten to a point where people in South Korea are paying to go to a mock prison just to escape their work lives.
Pointless meetings, unproductive emails and phone calls, co-worker discussions and disruptions, preparing and eating food, getting coffee, reading news websites, and social media are all culpable.
A 2018 survey by The Workforce Institute found that 45% of global workers across eight countries think it should only take five hours a day to do their job, if they’re uninterrupted.
In the same study, 35% of workers said they’d take a 20% pay-cut to work one day less per week. However, those numbers vary by country, as 50% of workers in Mexico, 43% in India, and 42% in France would take that arrangement compared with only 29% in Canada and 24% in the US.
At the end of 2019, Microsoft released a study showing that productivity at its Japan offices increased by 40% after the company required workers to take every Friday off, while still paying their full salaries.
Coming from one of the world's biggest tech companies, the argument for a shortened workweek gained momentum, as it proved not just better for workers, but also for business.
In 2018, a New Zealand trustee services firm called Perpetual Guardian tried a similar approach for two months, allowing its 250 employees to work four days but get paid for five.
Like Microsoft, the company saw great improvements not only in productivity, but also in stress levels and job satisfaction among workers.
Andrew Barnes, founder of Perpetual Guardian, had guessed that less work hours would mean more efficiency, but what he was surprised to hear was that people said working four days instead of five helped them better handle their workload.
The two-month trial was such a success that Perpetual Guardian permanently switched to what Barnes calls a "100/80/100" system: 100% pay, 80% hours, 100% productivity.
Unlike Microsoft Japan, which dictated when its workers could take their day off (Fridays), Perpetual Guardian lets its workers decide which day to drop, or they can just work fewer hours every day.
Some consist of cramming 40 hours into four 10-hour days, but this hasn't shown better results. Reducing the workweek one day's worth of hours, on the premise that the workers will be more focused in the remaining hours, is the more popular choice.
It may sound absurd at first to pay for 40 hours but have people work for only 32, but it repeatedly boasts material improvements in productivity, lower turnover rates, lower sickness rates, and more.
When we are healthy and enjoying our lives, we naturally perform better. We don’t need to indulge in distractions, we don’t need so many sick days, and we can focus better in shorter amounts of time.
It could also re-distribute the available secure work to those who desperately need more work, reducing unemployment and underemployment.
Andrew Barnes’s 2020 book, ‘The 4 Day Week: How the Flexible Work Revolution Can Increase Productivity, Profitability and Wellbeing, and Create a Sustainable Future,' says the changes can’t be top-down.
At Perpetual Guardian, because the employees were incentivized to find a solution for themselves, to ensure the company still functions while allowing people time off, their business model and job satisfaction was strengthened.
Critics of the four-day week say that it only applies to white-collar office jobs stuck in an outdated nine-to-five, Monday through Friday mindset, which leaves out many other jobs.
Obviously it’s a generalized statement, but Thompson rejects the four-day workweek’s theory in favor of the ROWE system.
This system lets workers decide when, where, and how they work, and they are only paid for achieving defined results or output rather than how many hours they worked.
The theory with the ROWE system is that when people are working on their own time, they’ll be less likely to waste it. In addition to increasing productivity, people will be healthier, and they’ll be more incentivized to develop better ways of working.
By prioritizing results, the system works across a greater range of jobs. Employees in office jobs also get the added perks of not having to request to leave early, work from home, or even go on vacation.
ROWE has to be specifically designed for the company’s individual needs with clearly defined goals, and it also means giving up the old notion that the best employees are the ones who are always at their desks.
Parkinson's Law states that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion,” and it stands true that the five-day, 40-hour workweek is an entirely unnecessary expansion for most of us.
See also: Are dress codes still relevant? Here are the pros and cons.
For many people around the world, the five-day workweek seems to be how life has always functioned, and, for some, five days has even been the minimum. But as our societies develop and issues like burnout become more prevalent, we’re starting to take a closer look at the system we took for granted, and perhaps noticing some great disparities between our work hours and productivity.
In one of the largest trials of a four-day week yet, 61 British businesses—including banks, fast-food restaurants, and marketing agencies—gave their workers one paid day off a week to see if they could do the same work more effectively in less time. After logging sharp drops in worker turnover and sick days while maintaining productivity throughout the six-month trial, more than 90% of the companies said they would continue testing the shorter week, while 18 already planned to make it permanent, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The idea of the four-day work week seems quite radical to many, especially with the 100/80/100 principle, but it’s actually been proven by big companies to have various benefits, which both you and your company, and hopefully your government, will want to pay attention to. Click through to learn more, and start making your case!
Is the five-day workweek outdated? Here's what's next
Many people don’t believe they need eight hours
LIFESTYLE Workplace
For many people around the world, the five-day workweek seems to be how life has always functioned, and, for some, five days has even been the minimum. But as our societies develop and issues like burnout become more prevalent, we’re starting to take a closer look at the system we took for granted, and perhaps noticing some great disparities between our work hours and productivity.
In one of the largest trials of a four-day week yet, 61 British businesses—including banks, fast-food restaurants, and marketing agencies—gave their workers one paid day off a week to see if they could do the same work more effectively in less time. After logging sharp drops in worker turnover and sick days while maintaining productivity throughout the six-month trial, more than 90% of the companies said they would continue testing the shorter week, while 18 already planned to make it permanent, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The idea of the four-day work week seems quite radical to many, especially with the 100/80/100 principle, but it’s actually been proven by big companies to have various benefits, which both you and your company, and hopefully your government, will want to pay attention to. Click through to learn more, and start making your case!