How does a 4 day week sound to you?
Picture this, it’s Sunday night and you’ve had a productive day: you ran some errands, you cleaned the house, caught up with your family and friends and overall had a good weekend. However, you are still tired and just need one more day before you go back to work.
Well, soon enough many of us could have this extra day, this beautiful and time giving day.
Everything around the way we work is changing. We now have the ability to source information from anywhere, at any time and through any device, allowing us to interact through messaging, calling or video calling.
In recent news, independent agency Deepened, has been recognised for its success since implementing a flexible four-day working week agreement back in July 2018. Staff have been allowed to choose to work longer days, allowing them to take Wednesdays off completely or given the choice of telecommuting. Employees are able to engage in work related tasks outside of the workplace while also given an additional day that provides employees with the flexibility they desire.
Deepened has experienced many internal benefits including, an increase in staff productivity, more freedom and trust that allows the staff to feel more engaged and motivated at work. Each Wednesday at Deepened, the office is closed and any internal or client meetings are scheduled on different days.
Despite in most cases they are working the same amount of hours as those who work a 5 day week, a recent study from the UK’s largest money saving brand, found that the average time spent on working is 2 hours and 53 minutes each day. Employee productivity has been found to have a number of distractions with social media, organisation times, co-worker discussions, breaks and more.
Productivity is a growing problem partly because of media distraction. But ironically employees have increased efficiency with media in telecommuting. However, workers from around the world who have implemented four-day working weeks, such as Schulz-Hofen, who is founder of a software company Planio, recognised that in five days “you think you have more time, you take longer, you allow yourself to have more interruptions”.
The argument for a four-day work week appears to be great when acknowledging that giving ourselves an extra day off actually motivates us. We begin to be more productive and are able to limit our distractions through the week.
In addition, the results have shown wider benefits to working patterns within society, such as, “a four day week means 20% of commuter traffic is removed” and, more importantly, the flexibility assists in the gender pay gap by helping parents balance income and time with their children.
Then benefits are consistently recognised, for example, as mentioned by Danah Boyd in “Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics and implications” there are four major affordances in networked publics: persistence, replicability, scalability and searchability. These affordances offer us ways of recording information, the ease of duplicating said information, potential to make the information visible on a large scale and for information to be found through a simple search.
Unfortunately, it gets a little more complicated, as not all industries could immediately adapt to have the luxury of an extra day off.
Not every industry could potentially have a four-day work week. There are a number of industries such as manufacturing, construction, banking, teaching/child care and more as well as contrasting theories for why a four-day work week would not work.
It is often argued that even with a reduced number of working days, issues can arise. Employees still rely on earning the same if not similar pay for their shorter, but more driven work week, pushing them towards new financial strains. Employees tend to work longer hours on their days at work, putting them at risk of burning out. Further issues around people being sick or away force businesses to reallocate work with less time to do so.
If more businesses begin to implement a 4 day work week, then it’s clear that they need to do carefully assess their situation in accordance to the abundance of research that is available. With media technologies providing greater affordances, there is a slither of hope that soon you will get your 3 day weekends.
Until then, strategic approaches must be made as it is seemingly apparent that “technology without strategy won’t get you very far”. With strategies in place, there is hope that your company will grow like the rest and show the future of a successful work-life balance all within a 4-day working week.
