Eye on HR: Is it happening?
UNLEASH editor Jon Kennard zeroes in on just one thing this week. And this time it isn’t chatbot-related (but it’s no less important).
Why You Should Care
Is resistance futile? The case for a four day week is building.
But - not everyone everywhere can benefit, so think about what else you can offer. Editor Jon Kennard looks at the latest four-day week research.
There’s only been one topic on my mind in the last few days, and that’s the results of the largest four-day week experiment in the world so far.
The four-day week is an idea that’s been around for decades, but it’s only seriously considered in the last five years or so. The Dutch economist and historian Rutger Bregman (he of the viral WEF video) made the four-day week (or less) a key plank of his recent book, ‘Utopia for Realists‘. And he’s not the only one trying to argue for these lofty ideals to be made flesh.
As is the trend these days – and rightly so – the decision makers in most organizations want their big strategic move to be backed by data rather than based on supposition, hunches, or worse, confirmation bias (more on this later).
So what did this experiment’s latest data reveal? Shock horror – employees loved it, embracing a much improved work-life balance and clearer focus and productivity during the hours they did work.
But that’s not the most interesting bit.
Most people could have predicted that employee reaction; here’s the best bit. 92% of employers want to carry on the experiment, with 30% of that 92 claiming they’ve already seen enough and are making the four day week permanent (and let’s not forget a productivity gain of 1.4% during this time as well).
This is unprecedented and clear clinical proof that the four-day week benefits everyone involved.
And yet. AND YET. Despite all these gains; the employee engagement, productivity, wellbeing, profit, it is still an idea that has this kind of halo of absurdity about it. Our confirmation biases are so strong, our conditioning so severe, that we refuse to believe it’s true.
How can we overcome this? That’s the real question. One way is to experiment yourself and see if you experience these same gains, of course.
The other is to look at the history of the workplace. As one example, less than 200 years ago children in the UK as young as nine were still working more than 48 hours a week. We’ve experienced so much change in the last 200 years, it’s odd that our views have become so entrenched about what works for the workforce.
We should be staying curious, asking ourselves ‘what if…?’ every single day and disrupting the status quo to unleash our people to their full potential.
BUT – this also should be tempered by an acute awareness of privilege. So many industries in so many countries will be unable to experiment at this point in the adoption lifecycle of the four-day week due to workplace conditions, staffing, and other unavoidable shortcomings.
To me, this feels like even more of a reason to do it. Not everyone gets to. We owe it to anyone of working age to push these boundaries, to improve the baseline bare minimum required for what are considered decent global working conditions.
And for industries that can’t make the change, other workplace benefits that work for you should come to the fore and be made a settled part of the employer-employee contract.
Let’s keep pushing the agenda for a better work life for all, and if productivity gains are also the upshot of it, what’s not to love?
The International Festival of HR is back and the agenda is now live! Discover amazing speakers from the world of HR and business at UNLEASH America on 26-27 April 2023.
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Editorial content manager
Jon has 20 years' experience in digital journalism and more than a decade in L&D and HR publishing.
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Topics
Future of Work
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