Four-Day Workweek. A Practical Review. Doubtful, but OK
4 working days a week! A dream for lovers of coconut milk raf? Or a real prospect for the future?
I was puzzled by this question when I saw the announcement of another attempt at testing. This time in Germany. I immediately anticipated the pointlessness of this event, but then I stopped myself from making value judgments and decided to conduct a small study using open data.
In this article, we will analyze the accumulated experience of a 4-day workweek. We will evaluate the reality of such a schedule while maintaining productivity and without reducing wages. And do we need it at all?
What do we know about the planned experiment in Germany?
The experiment with a 32-hour work week will be carried out for 6 months.
45 companies are participating. Unfortunately, I could not find a list of them.
In Germany, people work on average the same as we do: 40 hours a week.
The project is being implemented in collaboration with the Berlin-based consulting company Intraprenör and the non-profit organization 4 Day Week Global (4DWG).
Conclusion one: it will not be possible to implement a 4-day workweek on your own. You need to use the experience of qualified consultants who have consulting experience in this area.
What does practical experience tell us?
Organization 4Day Week Global This is not the first time that he has helped implement and promote a 4-day work week.
Here Here there are cases. I liked the case about KickstarterThey switched to a 4-day work week and have remained on it ever since.
And it really is! Who would I be if I didn't check? If I open Kickstarter jobs then you may find that they actually offer a 4-day work week.
Unfortunately, I can't compare the pay for specialists with similar positions in other companies. But the result is interesting nonetheless.
Conclusion two: there are companies where the pilot results were successful, and it flowed into production. This is a fact!
I won't list all the studies or cases. But a short summary can be read on the website WEFand the pros and cons on the 4-Day Work Week project website.
In short, the advantages are:
The company's attractiveness when recruiting personnel increases.
Improving work-life balance for employees.
Cutting costs and reducing carbon emissions (questionable, but OK): Organizations save on energy, utilities, and resources.
Better time management. Employees slack off less (even more questionable).
Minuses:
Not applicable to all positions.
Additional stress and strain during the workday. To be able to do the same work in less time.
Negative impact on customer satisfaction. You are already working 4 days a week, but your clients or customers are not yet.
Not suitable for all organizations. For example, not suitable for the medical sector.
Complexity of implementation. It is necessary to create institutions dealing with this issue and consulting other organizations.
A spoon of tar
There are only successful cases on the Internet and no unsuccessful ones. There are suspicions that companies and consultants do not want to publish failures.
Conclusion three: not everything is so rosy and failures are not published. Otherwise, large tech giants would have been working 4 days a week long ago.
Is it possible to use a 4-day work week on a large scale?
Here there will be fewer facts and more of the author’s personal opinion.
There are many factors that will definitely not allow a transition to a reduced work schedule in the foreseeable future. And these factors largely outweigh the advantages that are indicated in the research results.
Labor productivity has its limits
If a person is highly productive, then reducing working hours will automatically reduce the amount of output per week. And if a person is unproductive 5 days a week, then he will be equally unproductive 4 days a week.
An inquisitive mind will suggest that all these stupid managers just go and increase productivity through proper processes and personnel management. This is the perfect solution to the problem!
I agree. But if they didn't do it with a 5-day work week, do you really think they'll do it with a 4-day work week?
People won't be happy for long. Maybe a few months. But then the effect will wear off.
To understand why this is so, we need a term Hedonic adaptation.
Hedonic adaptation (or hedonic treadmill) is the tendency for people to maintain a relatively stable level of happiness and to quickly return to that level after major positive or negative events or changes in their lives.
Let me give you an example. You've probably encountered a situation where your colleague or employee wants to quit because he doesn't like the current tasks or wants to grow in another area? And the new place pays more. And so, he is kept by a counteroffer. But after a few months, he still quits. Because “money” is not a key factor for him.
It turns out that at the moment of the counteroffer, there was over-motivation, which stopped working after a few months. The same will happen with a 4-day work week.
Well, in the end, it’s not for nothing that we say that a person gets used to and adapts to everything.
Loss of company advantage in the market
As we understand, rarely any companies are monopolists and in fact always compete with someone. And within the framework of this competitive race, organizations try to produce more product or other value than their competitors. After all, this is what brings in more money.
And if a company gets carried away with a 4-day work week and its results fall, it will either immediately roll back the changes or lose market share.
Hence the following conclusion.
Conclusion four: the mass introduction of a 4-day workweek is possible only under the same conditions in different companies. And this is possible only with a change in labor legislation.
What are the results?
There are structures that are accumulating experience in using a 4-day work week and are actively engaged in consulting on this topic.
There are also some successful tests of the 4-day workweek at the moment. And even at companies with a well-known name.
But, if we look at the whole picture, among the enthusiastic reviews of the piloting results we find little specificity. Or it was collected over a short period of time. We do not see any successful testing results in the mass.
The prospect of mass implementation of a 4-day workweek is very doubtful and vague, unless the government helps with it. And now there is no interest in this. In our country, with a labor shortage, for sure.
So where does all this hype about the 4-day workweek come from? With testing over several years on many continents? And with the opening of institutes to study this topic?
After all, if the stars are lit, it means someone needs it?
Reflections on this topic will be in one of the following articles. Well, write your thoughts in the comments.
I hope you like the article and get a lot of likes. In this case, there will be a continuation of the analysis of this topic. You can also subscribe to my TG channel about management in the IT sphere and more.
