Relative to the dominant discussion of burnout among employees and even business owners, there is another topic about the 4-day work week being better than the 5-day work week. The argument here is that if people do not spend all of their time working, they would generally be more productive when they return to work. I will come back to this in a moment
This post is not about founders and business owners, most of whom work the 7 days of the week. This is about the employees who mostly have that one story of how they worked themselves sick or experienced brain fog due to long unending work hours. It is on this premise that the suggestion of a 4-hour workweek comes up – allow people to have an extra day to add to the weekend to relax.
The question now is – how feasible is this?
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As an entrepreneur or business manager, would you still have any company left if your staff worked 4 days a week? Will this actually increase productivity for the company? If this is to be applied, is there a way the reduced work hours will reflect on remuneration? Do employees really need an extra day to add to their weekends? And if they get that extra day off work, will they actually relax? Or will they be chasing other sources of income, or side hustles?
First of all, I should note here that while the 4-day work week may be practicable in a few sectors, it cannot apply to some others. Without mentioning any, there are sectors where staffs work 7 days a week, plus a few extra hours. There are also businesses where the staffs work in shifts, as against the regular 9 to 5.
Now, on to the issue of productivity and how this may or may not affect it. One question the manager should objectively answer is whether you are giving your employees less to do, or you expect them to do the same work in fewer hours. The answer to this is very important to the success of your entire productivity drive. What I find is that some only end up filling the shorter hours with more work still trying to beat the same targets, and trying to produce more faster.
If this is your case, then you are sabotaging the goal you are trying to achieve. If you want to help your staff free up time to spend with family and do the things they love, then they should be able to spend that time relaxing, not worrying about the pile of work they have to return to.
Trying to increase productivity is a totally noble gesture, but there doesn’t have to be a hard rule to it. For some businesses and some sectors, the 4-day work week may work just fine. For some others, it could be reducing the work hours from 9 – 5 to 9 – 3 for the five days of the week. Another business could instead choose to reduce weekly targets by 20%. Still, another could provide a flexible work plan that cuts off commute time.
You could have a discussion with your staff and find out what works for them, rather than adopt what every other business is adopting. After all, you are really trying to help your staff so they should have a say in what they want. Who knows? Some of them might even opt to work more hours for some extra allowances or incentives. Don’t assume.
The principal thing is to create a good work culture and treat your employees as you would treat that expensive machinery that you service regularly to avoid breakdown.