Work can be exhausting. However, it’s the only way the vast majority of us can get the means to survive. Too many people in the world find themselves on Sunday nights thinking about going back to work with a grueling sense of dread. Don’t you think they would want to work only four days a week?
Conventional wisdom around this topic always goes back to phrases like “You have to soldier through it!”, “You must find love in what you do!” or the worst one: “Once you work doing what you love, you won’t work a day in your life.”
That last one is often cited as having been said by Mark Anthony, Mark Twain, or Confucius, and whoever you see being credited as the author, it’s equally negative for the reader’s well-being. Could it be that I don’t love what I do? And if that’s not the case, does it mean that I’m lazy?
The answer to both those questions is no.
Why Do We Work 5 Days a Week?
This dilemma has existed for as long as the standard work week has. Back when industrialization changed the economy, social structures, the places where people lived, and how we think about working, it was decided that the best way to bust up production and get the most profit possible was for people to work as much as possible.
For factory owners, the well-being of workers was secondary to increasing their profits. Did you know that having weekends as days of rest from work, came about as recently as the 20th century?
There has been much written about how this schedule was just a subtle transition from slave labor to industrial labor, with worker rights far from a priority in corporate structuring.
But now, more than a hundred years apart from the invention of the 5-day work week, maybe it’s time to ask, is it really necessary? Those difficult years are long by, and even though we still fight different issues, in recent years many studies have shown that 21st-century workers are more productive when they feel appreciated by their employers.
That’s when the 4-day workweek comes into play.
What’s the 4-day Workweek?
The 4-day work week is a new corporate initiative to shorten the conventional work week by one day. Reducing the usual 40 working hours a week, to 32 working hours. This model has been applied to great degrees of success in other countries around the world (and for solid reasons).
Iceland, New Zealand, the United States, and some major trials in the United Kingdom have demonstrated that reducing the work to a day working week has great results in many different areas and can get us closer to a more humanitarian way of looking at work while still achieving more productivity.
The benefits for individual companies and employees alike have raised this initiative’s relevance and major political parties have introduced plans to start their 4-day workweek, to great public support.
Other than national initiatives to implement the four-day week, private companies have tried the 4-day work week, and results show that employees find great benefits from trying this new, compressed work schedule.
Four-Day Week Benefits
Having an extra day to rest, handling domestic tasks, and engaging in non-work activities at will take the pressure out of the worker’s minds. The value that this has for the well-being of the people working at a company speaks volumes as to how neglected this aspect of corporate life is traditionally thought of.
An example worth talking a bit more about is the case of Microsoft Japan. Japan is one of the highest job-related stress countries in the world. This is due to a history of corporate culture not valuing, but expecting self-exploitation from employees.
Peer pressure to always go above and beyond to get the best results and productivity at any cost tends to translate into people spending much of their time away from home, always working extra time without necessarily expecting to be compensated for it.
The consequences of this are easily observable, with a high suicide rate and high turnover rate from most industries.
The 2020 coronavirus pandemic emergency state forced Japanese companies to work from home, and the reported good mental health results from employees, even in the middle of a pandemic, threw light into how important it was to look for solutions to the pervasive and dangerous results of the current state of Japanese corporate culture.
The aforementioned four-day week’s trial by Microsoft Japan, along with shortening the duration of meetings and putting a cap on the number of people needed to be present in these meetings, ended up saving electricity costs for the company, as well as increasing sales by up to 57% at the end of the year.
This pilot program and other studies ended up pushing the Japanese government to recommend all companies implement similar strategies in 2021, and since then, the results have been shown to repeat themselves wherever the strategy is applied. This helps us push on to our next point.
Aren’t There Disadvantages to a 4-day Workweek?
The most common comment labeled at someone pushing for trying out an alternative workweek schedule is the claim that it would hinder productivity.
If you think about it, you get the feeling that it could be possible that by working one less day per week less work will get done. This has been proven wrong on numerous occasions, and there are multiple explanations as to why.
More Rest Is Good For Productivity
Employees will try to finish tasks faster with one less day in a week to work. Having less time to complete a pending activity pushes people to be more efficient with their time. We can say that a four-day workweek offers businesses stronger results in reduced hours while giving employees the same amount of money for their abilities.
Employees in other countries, besides those we already mentioned, reported having less dead time since everyone pushed themselves to be as productive as possible. Shortened workdays lead to more concentration and productivity during the rest of the working hours.
This can also be attributed to the fact that these workers went into the 4-day work week having had one extra free day. More rest leads to less burnout, better sleep, less anxiety, and more enthusiasm when the time comes to start working again.
Data Shows That Workers Love This
Workers value this experience so much that a significant amount claim that “no amount of money could get them to go back to a 5-day work week”. This is not an irrational feeling spitted out by lazy workers, is a smart decision any person would make to favor their work-life balance.
That’s how we prove that companies that adapt to this philosophy faster can show their employees that profit and performance don’t come before their well-being.
This message comes from the employer and not the workers having to rationalize their own need for survival against a deteriorating mental state.
Mental Health Comes to the Forefront
Another benefit of having four-day weeks is you get an extra day to get your mind off of work and focus on your own internal life and private affairs. The 4-day workweek provides full-time employees the time to schedule appointments to look after themselves.
Psychological therapy is not as stigmatized as it once was, and in much of the developed world is actually encouraged by the best employers. You don’t have to be damaged or crazy to go to a therapist, and staying productive for long periods often requires maintenance.
This extra day in the life of workers allows them to be themselves for longer. Away from the pressures of corporate language, workers can breathe in and enjoy the things that they value about themselves.
Just think for a second about how many movies start with characters reaching a breaking point due to feeling trapped in their job. Maybe having a four-day workweek would have prevented that.
Better Work-Life Balance
No employee wants to be that character, and no employer should want to make someone get to that point of mental decay.
There has been much written about how the relationship between a worker and their employer is problematic. It’s very easy to see it as exploitative, and employers need to take any possible steps to make sure the use of their workers’ time serves a humane and well-intending purpose, as well as communicating this to employees.
This has to be done by taking these progressive measures. A four-day workweek, health benefits, PTO, extra payments when milestones are achieved, etcetera.
Are 4-day Work Weeks the Future?
The short answer is yes. We saw during the world’s largest trial for the four-day workweek experiment that all the countries started embracing new work models. It all starts by reducing work hours without cutting pay. This is something that happened in much of Western Europe, and the results have been greatly documented as a success.
From the 35-hour work week in Germany, the highest performing European economy, we can see that the way we think about work as a permanent grind that one has to soldier through to achieve their goals is not a healthy nor effective way to go about it.
Think about how many people you know that, even though they work doing something you know they love, are often overwhelmed by work. Loving what you do does not guard you against work stress and burnout, and being good at what you do needs great care and caution to keep it up for long periods.
Self-betterment and education are something that most people value greatly in our modern age, and workplaces that require you to put them aside in order to succeed are being held accountable by workers who leave and corporate environments that harbor resentment at the very walls that hold the company, are destined to fail in the long run when the future catches up to them.
What Makes Freelance Latin America Different?
For one, we implemented a four-day workweek. This is revolutionary in outsourcing companies, and we have found great results in the time since. Our Corp Team can attest to how great the impact has been in their lives, and we can tell you from a productivity perspective that our results have been in line with all the findings we’ve been discussing thus far.
Four-day workweeks aren’t a luxury, but a way to improve work-life balance. Less working days are nothing when you see greater results and increased productivity in all participating companies.
Leaving archaic corporate mindsets behind is what sets companies apart and allows them to succeed in our current day and age. Freelance Latin America values workers’ well-being above all else, and our productivity scores because of this.
You can count on our services whenever you need outsourced help for your business, and having a healthy corporate culture is an asset you can now count on, making sure work is an expression of pure human talent and excellence. If you want to know more about how you can hire talent with us, book a meeting with our business manager here.
