There has been a lot of talk lately about the possibility of businesses moving to a 4 day work week. This sounds like a great idea in theory. The benefits are what most businesses are striving for e.g. improved wellbeing, better employee engagement, lower turnover etc. But there are some important things to consider before making the switch. In this blog post, we will discuss the main issues that prevent a 4 day work week from working. We explore what employees should be doing on the ‘out of office’ day. It should NOT be just another day of leave or an extended long weekend.
The first issue to consider is the type of business you have. Can your business can actually function on a reduced schedule? For some businesses, this simply isn’t possible nor practical. If your business provides customer service or there is a public expectation that your services are available during normal working hours, then a 4 day work week may be hard to implement.
For example: If you run a help desk 24/7, you can’t just close up shop for one day every week without making some adjustments. You may need to hire additional virtual staff. You may need to outsource certain tasks. Or you may need split shifts and different out-of-office days for different teams, in order to keep everything running smoothly.
The second issue to consider is whether or not your employees will actually be productive on a four day work week. The idea of paying employees 100% of their current wage to work 80% of the time and maintain 100% productivity (100-80-100 pilot) sounds overly idealistic. The expectation of doing more in less time requires a change in the ways of working. Business leaders need good insights and input from the employees as to what changes and/or training is needed. Just asking them not to work on one day of the week may result in a decrease in productivity.
The third issue to consider is how a four day work week might impact an employee’s health and wellbeing. We need to assess both physical and mental impacts. If employees are given the option to work four days a week but not told how to use that day out of the office, many may simply use it to do more work from home (WFH). This leads to longer working hours, higher stress and a negative impact on their health. They need to know what to do when work starts to pile up. How can they reset and get back on track? If not, rather than improve wellbeing, this could contribute to an acceleration towards burnout.
As mentioned, there are numerous other examples of disadvantages of a 4 day work week that businesses need to consider. Some may be unique to their business. They mainly stem from a lack of consultation with employees in terms of what they want.
A recent study from RMIT and Deloitte on ‘Effective training for jobs of tomorrow‘ shows some startling statistics:
- 56% of Australians would prefer dedicated training over free lunches at work
- 38% of Australians would prefer paid study leave over a promotion
- 53% of Australians would prefer a learning culture over a fun culture at work
- 24% of Australians would prefer $1,000 to spend on training every year than $50 of extra pay each week
(Ready, set, upskill: Effective training for the jobs of tomorrow, RMIT and Deloitte, 2021)
The report also shows that the main barrier to learning is work commitments. There is a strong business case for the ‘Out-of-Office’ day to be a definitive day for employee personal and professional development. It is not just another day of leave. It becomes a critical time investment in human resources and should be incorporated into employee performance reviews.
Personal development
When it comes to personal development, we need to look at total employee wellbeing. A good wellbeing plan incorporates physical, mental and financial wellbeing, tailored to the employee. Managers and leaders should discuss ideas and activities that would contribute to a measurable improvement in all three areas.
For example, not every employee enjoys going to the gym so what would be the value of subsidised gym memberships? Could there be a different physical activity that would derive better results? Is it playing a sport like golf or tennis? Ideally, it’s an activity that would generate an increase flow of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins, natural chemicals that are proven to improve performance at work.
Professional development
The RMIT and Deloitte study shows that “The average working Australian spends over 150 hours on learning each year but 47% of people don’t find this training relevant to their job or find it didn’t teach them anything new”. Businesses need to do more work to match training delivery to industry demands.
We strongly advocate and support the move towards a 4 day work week but unlike many others, there is one proviso. The Out-of-Office day is an investment by the employer in their employees. It is an investment in their personal and professional development activities that is conducive to an uplift in effectiveness.
Many of us have had development plan discussions with our managers before. If your experience is anything like mine, that discussion is pretty short and only focused on areas of weaknesses in skills and/or knowledge.
In our world today, this is no longer going to cut it in terms of being able to retain high performers. We believe that it’s the combination of providing greater work/life balance plus investing in tailored personal and professional development activities. This is the only way the transition to 4 day work weeks will succeed. If not, it may well become a wasted initiative that may have short terms support but fade away over the longer terms as just another HR fad.
If you’re interested in finding out more about how a 4 day work week can benefit your business, contact Ivan today.