Work, old habits and the promise a four-day week offers
The biggest and longest-ever four-day week experiment has concluded in the United Kingdom with an overwhelmingly positive result: 95% of the 73 companies that took part said productivity remained the same or increased during the period evaluated, and that the well-being of their workers, who were paid their previous salary, had increased. In fact, 83% of the companies said they would now switch to a four-day week.
The trial, carried out by a consortium called 4 Day Week Global, contrasts with one undertaken by Spain’s Telefonica, whereby 150 of its workers had to accept a 16% pay cut. In failed miserably: only 1% accepted the offer.
The point is clear: paying people based simply on the hours they put in at the office fails in the face of options based on less control and more freedom: set a certain productivity target, we are happy to work harder in less time, as long as our salary is not affected. Cutting pay in line with fewer working hours is simply unacceptable.
Why do we work eight hours, five days a week from Monday to Friday? These are simply conventions established over time, consolidated from habits and customs generally based on the factories of the industrial revolution and the evolution that workers’ rights have undergone since then. The bargaining that has led us to this situation was…
