The four day work week - the way forward?

Recently, a six-month trial was launched in the UK to determine whether the four-day work week hinders productivity for 80% of the time, with pay being unaffected. Consequently, I thought I’d explore the benefits and hindrances of adopting the four-day work week.

Increased productivity:

Employees feeling less overworked due to working less hours could improve productivity levels. For instance, in Japan ‘Microsoft’ saw their productivity rise by 40% and ‘Perpetual Guardian’ saw productivity rise by 20% as well as a decrease from 45% - 38% in stress. This provides a compelling reason to adopt this work practice, especially as there is a direct correlation between stress and productivity levels. We’ve all procrastinated when we’ve felt overworked with work, haven’t we?

Conversely, the four-day work week could adversely affect productivity – to produce a high-quality piece of work one may need to spend a certain number of hours on it, something the four-day work week could impact as one may cram certain tasks meaning they run the risk of completing them to an unsatisfactory standard and having to re-do them again. Potentially, this lowers productivity as there a backlog on other tasks is caused.

Improved work-life balance:

Having a longer weekend provides the perfect opportunity for individuals to focus on their hobbies and spend time with their families and friends, which potentially improves employee happiness. For instance, Henley Business School found that 78% of companies who adopted this work practice reported happier employees. Additionally, having happier employees could also increase employee committment, which in turn could increase staff retention rates (usually 87%) with MRL reporting a 95% staff retention rate after the implementation of this policy.

Additionally, this better work life balance could result into a more gender equal workplace. Arguably, the current five-day work week has potentially deterred women particularly from working full time due to the unhealthy work life-balance as they find it challenging to balance work and home commitments. In fact, research by the Government Equalities Offices found 2 million people in the UK (89% of those female) are unemployed because of childcare responsibilities. This could be due to high childcare costs, which puts a financial strain on families, something the adoption of the four-day work week could relieve and create a better work-life balance as parents are able to spend more time with and money on their children. Further, this improved work-life balance the four-day work week has the potential to bring about could incentivise women to put themselves forward for higher paid positions, which, in turn, helps reduce the gender pay gap as management teams in companies become more gender equal. Arguably, we are already seeing this shift towards a better work-life balance already due to working from home becoming the norm, and the four-day work week would further exacerbate this trend.

Environmental Benefit:

The adoption of hybrid working, and the four-day work week means we would commute less into the office which reduces our emissions, which benefits the environment.

Industry Specific:

Arguably certain sectors such as the legal sector would find it easier to transition to a four-day work week as opposed to those with public sector jobs such as healthcare who need to run 24/7. Further, even if the healthcare sector aims to adopt the four-day work week, the current shortage of nurses and doctors would make it challenging to accommodate this transition. However, a trial in Sweden found that the four-day work week actually helped create 17 nurse jobs, so potentially adopting such a policy in the health sector could help combat staff shortages as it would make it a more attractive industry to work in.

Decrease in customer satisfaction:

A four-day work week potentially makes it challenging for individuals to access some services i.e. customer services, which hinders companies as it causes low customer satisfaction which could potentially impact revenue. This intensifies the need for companies to be innovative to combat this issue, so they may decide to utilise technology to support customers via online complaints forms and chatbots. However, this could be financially unviable for some companies; staff would need to be trained for this, and some may have longer delays than others in having all queries answered. This does little to combat low customer satisfactin levels and could negatively impact revenue. Additionally, some employees may be reluctant to adopt technological practices as it runs the risk of the need for them to work longer hours (potentially from home) thereby adversely impacting their work-life balance.

Anyhow, this is my take on the benefits and hindrances of adopting the four-day work week, which I hope you’ve found useful and enlightening to read.

DelveIntoLaw.