There’s a huge irony this was trialled in Japan, I believe they have a high suicide rate in young men due to work commitments.
I’m not a believer in too much state interference in the private sector, but if it’s proven that a four day week results in more productive employees then that should be a commercial decision the capitalist decision makers take to ultimately make more money.
I have probably changed my tune on this over the years. I’ve worked for companies where work is very regimented in terms of hours where I believed people couldn’t be trusted and needed to be seen to be working, and more recently where it’s slightly more laissez-faire in this department. In my current job, I start and leave differently to most in the office due to childcare, and if I need to pop out for personal reason - useful when moving house - it’s generally not a problem with my boss. On Fridays, only about 20% of people are in the office, as people typically “work” from home. I could quite easily do nothing on Fridays and no one would bat an eyelid, I’ve spent hours on lunch or at the pub before on a Friday afternoon.
But... Monday to Thursday is work. I’ll work evenings if there is something to be done, and have worked weekends before when required. The flexibility works for me as it’s give and take.
Technology is making this possible, I can work wherever I want and communicate with who I need from pretty much anywhere. I worked one Friday from a costa coffee whilst my car was being serviced and got more done in three hours than three hours in the office. The technology is probably there as a control to log what time I log on, what applications I’m using and so on. The problem is there will always be people that can’t be trusted and ruin it for the others.
As well as improved productivity, a bi-product of a four day week may actually be reduced stress and improved job satisfaction for less capable employees. We all work with people who struggle, with a shortened week it gives though with a slightly weaker skill set more time to catch up, as they may choose to use the free day to upskill or catch up on work. Survival of the fittest means these people get weeded out, but if they can get up to speed it reduces turnover and recruitment costs.
Simple things the private sector could do is introduced flexible hours for all, make it culturally acceptable to allow employees time to run errands and give an allowance of say 12 hours per year of time to use for personal use at any point, for example if you’ve had a stressful morning with a customer and no meetings scheduled I n the afternoon, you take 3 hours off and it comes out of the allowance.
I’ve read a few examples of start ups or new generation companies which have a shorter week as policy. If they are able to start up with a short week for employees I guess they’re more likely to survive.
