The changes in the workplace during the coronavirus pandemic surrounding remote and hybrid work have fueled questions about other aspects of work. Image: Shutterstock
MMost companies that took part in a pilot scheme involving a four-day workweek in the UK said they saw no drop in productivity during the experiment and in some cases saw a significant improvement, according to a survey of participants released on Wednesday. Almost half of the six In a month-long trial that gave employees one paid day off each week at 73 companies, 35 of the 41 companies that responded to a survey said they were “likely” or “very likely” to consider it would pull to continue the four-day work week beyond the end of The process in late November. All but two of the 41 companies said productivity was either flat or improved. Notably, six companies indicated that productivity had improved significantly. The talk of a four-day work week has been around for decades. In 1956, then-Vice President Richard Nixon said he saw it in “the not too distant future,” although it had not materialized on a large scale. But the changes in the workplace during the coronavirus pandemic surrounding remote and hybrid work have sparked questions about other aspects of work. Do we work five days a week just because we’ve been doing it that way for more than a century, or is it really the best way?” When you look at the impact of the pandemic on the workplace, we’ve often been too focused on where we work,” said Joe O’Connor, CEO of 4 Day Week Global, a nonprofit group conducting the study with a think tank and researchers from Cambridge University, Boston College and Oxford University. “Remote and hybrid work can bring many benefits, but it doesn’t combat burnout and overwork.” Some executives at companies in the study said the four-day work week gave employees more time to move, cook, spend time with their families and more. Take up hobbies, increase your well-being and make you more energetic and productive when you’ve been on the clock. However, critics fear additional costs and reduced competitiveness, especially when many European companies are already lagging behind competitors in other regions. More than 3,300 people employed in banking, marketing, healthcare, financial services, retail, hospitality and other sectors in the UK are taking part in the pilot, which is being developed, according to Jack Kellam, a researcher at Autonomy, a think tank that is one of the organizers of the study is one of the largest studies to date.Also Read: Being a Friend in Need for Your Employees: RealPage
At Allcap, one of the companies in the pilot program, it was too early to tell how the reduced workweek had impacted the company’s productivity or bottom line, said Mark Roderick, the managing director and co-owner of the 40-strong engineering and manufacturing company industrial supplies. Overall, however, employees were happy with the extra day off, and the company considered continuing with it. “Customers haven’t really noticed a difference,” said Roderick, who is based in Gloucester, England. For Roderick the New The schedule gave him more time to train for a recent Ironman triathlon in Wales. Still, some days are more stressful than they might have been, as summer vacation and the shorter workweek have meant staff can be thinned out. “We were all under a bit of pressure,” he said, using a British expression for “in a difficult situation”.Also Read: Employee Wellbeing Builds Collective Resilience: Nippon Life Asset Management CHRO
Similar experiments to those in the UK are being carried out in other countries, mostly in the private sector, including the United States, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia. At a trial in Gothenburg, Sweden, officials found employees doing the same amount of work or even more. Jo Burns-Russell, the chief executive of Amplitude Media, a marketing agency in Northampton, England, said the four-day work week was a success the 12-strong company hoped to cement permanently. Employees have found ways to work more efficiently, she said. The result was that the company delivers the same volume of work and continues to grow, even though half of the employees have Wednesdays off and the other half have Fridays off.Also read: Return to office: will women continue to pay a price for flexibility?
“It was definitely good for me that I didn’t have to keep pinging from thing to thing,” Burns-Russell said. She has taken up painting as a hobby and feels calmer overall. August is typically a slower month for the company, she said, so the real test will be how the experiment fares in recent months as the company expands, she said. Gary Conroy, the founder and CEO of 5 Squirrels, a skin care company based in Brighton, England, which is participating in the study, said employees have become more productive, make fewer mistakes and that employees work better together. ‘” he said, “because we’re all trying to get out of here on a 5 o’clock Thursday.”
