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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?

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.

As a Lagos banker and a doctoral banking & finance student, I spent time understanding currency and its impacts on the welfare of citizens. Writing to the African Union Congress, I posited that a single African currency under a supranational bank will struggle to improve the welfare of Africans. Why? Africa’s heterogeneous market will make it nearly impossible to design a  welfare-boosting monetary policy that will work for all countries. Simply, you will end up having shocks across communities.

Then, as I moved into engineering, I saw such divergent constructs in digital platforms. But here, instead of currency playing the central role, marginal cost becomes what you have to deal with. That marginal cost is your transaction and distribution cost. What happens therein determines your capacity to scale and grow as a business. That is the heart of the economics of digital platforms.

At Tekedia Institute Startup Masterclass, we have introduced a new course – The Economics of Digital Platforms – to help digital entrepreneurs (practically everyone as every business is going digital) understand how to win digitally. Explore and advance your business here.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Greetings! Thank you for making time yesterday to join the Demo Day.

This is to update that the video sessions  of all Tekedia Capital Demo Day pitches are now available in the Board. Login here and watch the presentations.

Also, let us know, via email, by April 6 2022, the startup(s) and the amount in USD you would be investing, if applicable. While you indicate the amount in USD, the transfer could be in Naira. The valuations for the startups are already posted in the Board.

If you have any questions, please let us know.

Regards,

Tekedia Capital