People tend to work five to six scheduled days every week. Over time, it becomes a game of pace.
Staying consistent with attendance plays an important role for anyone that is employed, and with obligations outside of work this can be overwhelming. Working four days can minimize this outside stress. It doesn’t delay people from making money—the thing that keeps people motivated to show up for work and stay ahead.
Having four days on the job is a game changer—less stress on the body and more self-reset days to focus more on personal goals. During the pandemic, many jobs and businesses were forced to shut down, making it difficult for those to have an honest living. With things looking uncertain, a shift on how to navigate everyday life became a relief.
To navigate the tough times, people began utilizing technology more to simplify things without being physically present.
An article from Time, Four-Day Work Weeks Are Good for Your Health, talks about how, in a study conducted by Professor Brendan Burchell from the University of Cambridge, people started doing more things to work at a better pace.
“People found all sorts of ways of working more efficiently, cutting out lots of the time they were wasting,” Burchell said.
Working less and not in contact with people, everyone started adapting to this new way of life.
Less than four years after the pandemic, now more than ever, people can work less or from home. This allows more time spent with family members, children, and significant others.
In the article, How to Actually Execute a 4-Day Workweek, Josh Bersin talks about how a study was conducted in 2022 with different airlines within the United Kingdom doing four-day workweeks.
“61 UK-based companies participated in a pilot program to study a four-day workweek,” wrote Bersin. “Average organizational revenue rose by 1.4 percent; pilot companies also reported a 57 percent decline in the likelihood that an employee would quit, plus a 65 percent reduction in the number of days taken off as paid sick time.”
After these results, some would argue “Well, why isn’t this everywhere?” Having only four days a week will keep people accountable for their workday actions, building stronger connections with co-workers and opportunities for those that would impact their work performance.
Over the past decade, things have changed for better or worse and they are beginning to move into the 21st century. Advanced technology is allowing people to work less, yet some workplaces require five to six days out of people to have a grand number on their checks.
In an article from BBC called “The realities of the four day work week” by Alex Christopher, the reporter interviewed Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, program director of the nonprofit organization 4 Day Week Global.
“There are different four-day workweek models: from cutting one workday, reducing working hours and being paid the same wage; to intense working hours, where five days’ worth of work is crammed into four longer shifts,” Pang said. “The former set-up is generally the goal; achieved by a combination of the introduction of new tools and operating practices that boost efficiency and result in a rise in worker wellbeing that fuels productivity.”
Working for four days during a workweek does work.
