The working week. For most of us, it's five days in a row where we work like hell before achieving the relaxing two-day weekend we so desperately want. This traditional way of working was shaped progressively across the ages by multiple factors like religion for example. Sundays are supposed to be the rest days for Christians and Saturday is important in Judaism during Sabbath. In modern times, working 5 days a week is considered normal mainly because it is a good way to accommodate the majority of the many religious views.
Closer to us now (talking about time here), in 1908, the five-day working week was introduced in the United States to accommodate the Sabbath's rules. Henry Ford was actually one of the first to close his factories during the weekend in 1926. The rest of America slowly followed after 1940 when a reform forced workers to never work more than 40 hours a week. The Arab World also had an influence over its surroundings during multiple workweek reforms.
There is a trend in America where working as much as possible is considered a good thing from a career point of view. The American Dream mentality is usually blamed because it promotes the idea that if you want to succeed in life, have a house and a car, you have to work hard. People usually associate working hard with working long hours.
So here is an idea that has gained a lot of attention in the last year: a new 4 day workweek reform that seems promising. But will it be?
If you look at Germany, the Netherlands or Denmark, you realize that they work less hours, are more happy and have more robust economies than countries like Japan or the UK. So what can we actually learn from that? And is it sufficient proof that the 4-day workweek is an amazing idea for everyone?
Lets see: working less hours leaves more free time for yourself, people have more opportunities to relax, enjoy life, spend time with their kids and train to become better at their job or to seek better ones. From a productivity point of view, having one less day to worry about work seems to make people more productive, more efficient and less wasteful of time than in their full five days of work. From a company point of view, it seems to make recruitment easier, it helps save money and helps with the moral of the people.
For now, everything seems great. But let's not forget what having a job is all about; it's not about being with your family, it's not about relaxing, it's about making money. And if a 4-day workweek is imposed, the number of hours per day might climb a lot. For example, if you used to work 40 hours per week, doing the same amount of hours will result in working 10 hours per day, instead of 8. Now, if there is a limit on the number of hours worked, then the annual salary of each person is going to suffer drastically; without mentioning the fact that work will be more intense and won't accept any slow-downs. Some people might want to find another job, which would mean losing the benefits of the 4-day system. All of this without mentioning the problems it might bring to essential services like healthcare, government or educational institutions.
So those are the main problems and the expected advantages such a change might bring if it was implemented. From my point of view, something this big should not happen over-night and companies should think twice before implementing such a system. The best way to go, in my opinion, would be to dedicate a period of time to this new way of doing things, get feedback and see if it's a good idea in the end. Something like this might reduce the income of the company or boost it if it is well implemented. Creating a huge reform out of this is not a good idea. In the end, it should just require a bit of testing and tweaking. Nothing more.
- http://i.imgur.com/UAMeBef.jpg
- https://lissanne.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/4-day-work-week-au.jpg
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=580VyI6hFmo&feature=youtu.be
- http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/08/investing/carlos-slim-3-day-work-week-will-happen/index.html
- http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/real-money-with-alivelshi/articles/2014/6/30/inside-the-life-ofacompanythatworksa4workweek.html
- http://simplicity.laserfiche.com/is-a-four-day-work-week-right-for-your-company/
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