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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
A skill can simply be defined as the ability to do something well. It can equally be referred to as the ability and capacity acquired through deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort in order to smoothly and adaptively carry out complex activities or job functions involving ideas, things, and/or people.
Similarly, skill acquisition is the process of acquiring a certain skill by an individual through a thorough intensive training over a given period of time. Skill acquisition involves both theoretical and practical training regardless of its duration.
Skill can be classified into three major parts including cognitive, technical and interpersonal skills. A cognitive skill deals with ideas; technical skill is the ability to handle things or a certain human endeavour effectively and efficiently; whilst, interpersonal skill is the ability to relate with people around you usually in business or work places.
It’s noteworthy that there are hundreds of thousands of skills in existence across the globe such as sporting skill, cultural skill, installation skill, maintenance skill, manufacturing skill, management skill and what have you.
Skill is required in every area of human endeavour and it enables the entrepreneurship drive of any nation to be actualized. The most important aspect of skill acquisition is that it benefits all classes in any society involved, especially the masses.
A small or medium scale entrepreneur is expected to hire many skilled people to take on tasks that are outside of his/her skill set. However, every individual either a prospective leader or business personnel, must relentlessly strive to acquire the skills that will make him or her a great leader or a successful businessperson, as the case may be.
Someone who has commenced a business or trade venture owing to his specialized skills and knowledge related to a particular service or product is required to expand his skills to be a successful entrepreneur. Such a measure is referred to as ‘skill enhancement’.
No doubt, improving skills related to acquiring money or raising capital for a business boost represents the difference between success and failure of the venture in question. It suffices to assert that the degree of skills acquired by an entrepreneur determines how far the venture goes in the future.
Unequivocally, being good at starting a business does not automatically make one good at planning for growth. He or she must acquire planning skills that tie his/her vision to practical steps, which the business can take to realize that vision. The acquisition of the aforementioned skill is important because without it, your firm or business venture can stagnate and lose out to the competition.
One may have envisioned a smooth rise to the top when he commenced his business, but the truth is that he will surely encounter crises or challenging situations. Whether it has to do with shortage of money or the loss of his facilities to a fire disaster, he must acquire the skills or technicalities that would enable him to remain calm in times of turmoil and maintain his ability to make adequate decisions.
The above step is very vital because the affected person can learn to triumph when it looks like he could be defeated. Needless to say that skill acquisition in decision making remains an inevitable tool while carrying out a business strategy.
On the other hand, the importance of acquiring strong communication skills will be evident in all of one’s entrepreneurial activities. From networking to leadership, one needs to constantly and consistently update his communication skills to enable him form alliances and encourage consensus.
Taking Nigeria as a case study, you would notice that most of our young ones, or the youth, are potentially preoccupied with variety of skills in various areas of human endeavour ranging from culture to sports, engineering/sciences, art works, and leadership, that need to be develop with a view to strengthening their respective entrepreneurship prowess towards nation-building.
To this end, there is a need to encourage the young ones to be acquainted as well as acquire proficiency in one skill or the other within their reach. The schools can help in this regard by ensuring that the pupils or students regularly create time for guidance and counselling during their school hours.
On their part, the schools that have already jettisoned the idea of counselling ought to equally do well by reviving such a lofty initiative. It’s not anymore news that such educational measures have unceremoniously gone into extinction in most existing primary and secondary citadels of learning in countries like Nigeria.
A good counselling would enable each of them to discover their potential skills or abilities, thereby making them develop an interest in that area. The parents and guardians on their part should not hesitate to boost the morale of their children or wards in any skill they are fit in by providing all the needed materials or facilities for them to excel.
Inter alia, there is an urgent need to revive the various technical colleges and commercial schools, situated across the Nigerian federation, that are currently moribund. At the tertiary level, the ‘Entrepreneurship Studies’ usually done by the undergraduates as a general course, ought to be taken more seriously by the various school managements.
In the same vein, the ongoing Industrial Training (IT) and Teaching Practice (TP) schemes being observed by the Universities/Polytechnics and Colleges of Education, respectively must be intensified by the concerned authorities towards boosting their effectiveness.
Above all, the various cultural heritages across Nigeria need to be revisited by the apt authorities with a view to harnessing the required ones. This will go a long way to discover and reawaken thousands of skills among the numerous youths domiciled in the country.
Intensification of skills acquisition among the youth via implementation of viable tech-driven measures and formidable policies is the fundamental way Nigeria can record a society imbued with self-reliant individuals, thereby drastically reducing youth restiveness in every facet of the country.
There could not be a better time for such consignment than now. Hence, it’s high time the concerned authorities fully embraced the needful.