According to a Stanford University study, productivity drops after 50 hours of work. Other experts believe that 35 hours of labor is the ideal amount of time to work before productivity begins to deteriorate. Employees who are overworked tend to be less efficient: their productivity during a given day is lower than it would be if they worked a shorter week due to stress, exhaustion, and other variables. Businesses can achieve the same results in fewer hours by emphasizing results rather than hours recorded, providing employees more time to explore other hobbies, spend time with loved ones, and manage their work-life balance. Origins of the Four Day Work Week: Working fewer hours and getting more work done is not a novel concept. Most people worked between 12 and 16 hours per day, six days a week, during the industrial revolution, with no paid holidays or vacations. There were hazards everywhere, and children as young as five years old labored. In 1817, Robert Owen, a Welsh textile mill owner, social reformer, and labour campaigner, proposed a shorter workday, but his effort was unsuccessful. People began to work our present five-day week instead of a six-day week when Henry Ford popularised the 40-hour workday. In July 1926, a few plants tried out a five-day workweek, and by September of that year, it had become company policy. By 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) had been passed, requiring a minimum wage of 25 cents per hour, a 44-hour workweek, and 1.5 times the regular pay for overtime. In 1939, the statute was changed to allow for a 42-hour workday and a 40-hour workweek in 1940. In the early 1990s, corporations in the United States began experimenting with a four-day, 40-hour workweek. In 2004, the city of Spanish Fork, Utah, conducted another early experiment, implementing a four-day, 10-hour workweek for city employees. From 2008 to 2011, the Utah state government experimented with the 4/10 schedule. Between 2015 and 2019, Iceland performed multiple large-scale experiments on a four-day workweek and found it to be an “overwhelming success.” The major findings of the trials revealed that a shortened workweek resulted in improved employee well-being across a range of metrics, from stress and burnout to health and work-life balance. Thus, the idea of a four-hour workweek has been gaining traction for years, but the pandemic and subsequent “Great Resignation” have piqued public interest. Recently, a new bill proposed in the California state assembly, AB 2932, seeks to reduce the maximum number of hours required for overtime pay from 40 to 32 for businesses with more than 500 employees in the state. In September 2021, Spain launched a three-year experiment that will utilize 50 million euros in European Union funds to reimburse an estimated 200 enterprises for cutting their employees’ workweek to 32 hours. 6-Day Work Week in Pakistan: While a number of the world’s developed countries are proposing a 4-day workweek, the new government in Pakistan changed it to a 6 Days work week. I’m going to discuss the implications now so you may get a better idea if it would work or not Positive Implications: Happier Employees: Working fewer days a week can keep the stress away and allows the employees to stay happy and active. Consequently, they would be more committed to their work. Healthy Employees with fewer leaves: Having 3 days off in a week can help in getting rid of mental strain and exhaustion. So, employees would stay healthy and efficient at work with fewer sick leaves. Increased Productivity: As mentioned above, research entails that working less days in a week increases productivity. It is a rational statement as it’s obvious that working less makes an individual more active. So with a fresh and active mind, he/she would be able to better perform and will carry out all chores with much more efficiency. Lower Office Expenses: Definitely, there would be a significant effect on the office expenses with 4 Day work week as compared to the traditional 5 or 6-day work setting. So any company would be able to use those savings to invest somewhere else. Environment Friendly: The 4 days workweek is also good for the environment as it can mitigate CO2 emissions by lowering commuting and traffic congestion. As per a 2012 analysis from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst: “Countries with shorter work hours tend to have lower ecological footprints, carbon footprints and carbon dioxide emissions.” Negative Implications: Not Applicable in all Sectors Unfortunately, the four-day workweek isn’t suitable for all industries. Some firms or professions require availability 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and there aren’t enough individuals to cover the hours required, making a shorter workweek impractical. We don’t want our hospitals or emergency services to be shut down for three days, but in rare cases, individual person can be given four-day weeks. Decrease Productivity in certain cases In service, logistics, or physical labor tasks, it’s not always possible to raise efficiency sufficient to deliver the same goals in fewer hours. The amount of productivity that people can achieve has a physical limit. Customer satisfaction may be affected Despite excellent results for employees and employers, the state of Utah abandoned the four-day workweek because it resulted in low customer satisfaction, with residents complaining that they were unable to access government services on Fridays. Low Wage Employees’ wages and benefits may not always be maintained if they work four days a week. The Los Angeles Times, for example, slashed employee compensation by 20% by switching to a four-day workweek as a cost-cutting strategy. Check out? Meta working on digital currency “Zuck Bucks” after it quits Diem cryptocurrency
