The relationship between long working hours and better results is a myth that needs to be changed.

Companies considering reducing workweeks to improve productivity

Remote working frees employees of some restrictions.

From the source

Institutions and companies in the private sector are studying the implementation of the work system, which includes reducing the weekly working days to four days instead of five, as part of the experience of the future of work, which seeks to treat the fatigue of employees from working long hours, and give them the opportunity to coordinate between work and their private lives.

The CEO of the American “Kickstarter” finance company in New York, Aziz Hassan, said that he “had to adopt remote work during the first phase of the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, and that he plans to allow his employees to work fewer hours over four days for the same wage, as part of An empirical study, where it is betting that the shorter schedule will allow employees to juggle work and personal life, which will have more time.”

Hassan added that his company will start its pilot program next year, noting that "we do not have the perfect design, as remote work was not widely accepted until the outbreak of the pandemic."

And the “Wall Street Journal” newspaper asked a question about the impact of “Covid-19” on the structure and nature of work, including the tradition of five days a week. Now with more improvement in work-life balance.

Labor market

University of Iowa professor and author of Work Without End, Ben Honeycutt, said that “employees in the labor market are quitting their jobs as competition from employers increases for the best talent, so the advantage of a shorter week would be a tool to attract employees.”

"The decision to cut working hours to six hours (without breaks) at his plant in Noblesville, Indiana in the 1990s helped protect the company from the problem of worker shortages," said Lindsey Hahn, CEO of Metro Plastics Technologies.

previous attempts

Previous attempts to make the work week shorter in the United States were unsuccessful.

Some companies cut weekly working hours to less than 40 hours during the Great Depression of the last century, and in 1933 the US Senate passed a bill to limit the work week to 30 hours, but after President Franklin Roosevelt dropped his support for the bill, it was not passed in Parliament.

"A shorter work week is likely to be appropriate for small service firms, but not for larger firms in highly competitive industries," said Harvard Business School professor David Yoffe.

One company that learned this lesson was Alter Market Research and Consulting.

I experimented with the four-day workweek last summer as a way to give employees flexible schedules during the stresses of the pandemic.

The company came up with an alternative solution, giving employees an extra day each month, which reduced stress and gave the company the advantage of hiring new employees who seek a better work-life balance.

asking for help

Uncharted, a nonprofit in Denver, Colorado, began experimenting with a four-day work week by giving employees Friday off.

Employees tended to seek help from their peers less frequently, because they did not want to disturb their colleagues within a short week.

The idea of ​​a short workweek has always been more attractive outside the United States, especially in places where long working hours and stress are not a big part of the culture.

Evidence is mixed regarding the effectiveness of short work weeks in countries that have adopted this concept.

In Germany, efforts to shorten working hours in the decade to 1994 hurt employment.

According to a study by Rutgers University economist Jennifer Hunt, the 35-hour policy in France that began in 2000 has done little to increase employment.

Pilot experiments

In March, the Spanish government said it would pay companies for testing four days a week.

Last November, London-based giant Unilever launched a trial run of the concept in its New Zealand offices.

Iceland was also one of the countries that showed positive results, with new evidence that the reduced schedule is working for some participants there.

Reykjavik City Council and the Icelandic government conducted the trials between 2015 and 2019, after unions there called for shorter working weeks.

Gross output did not decline in most workplaces, the report said, but rather improved in some places, with most workers maintaining or improving their productivity.

The Icelandic State and Municipal Workers' Union said a short work week required a change in culture and the abandonment of the myth that long working hours lead to better results.

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