Exploring the 4-day Work Week

In the early 1900’s, labor reform sought to create better working conditions for workers. Henry Ford was most famous for instituting the 8-hour shift, although he wasn’t the first. His reason, however, was that he recognized that productivity on the factory floor began to fall rapidly after 8 hours. Originally, even Ford’s workweek was a 6-day week, but there too, productivity won the day, resulting in a 5-day week. So, the 8-hour day/ 40-hour workweek was largely born out of the manufacturing industry nearly 100 years ago.

As work migrated largely from the factory to the office, some manufacturing traditions also migrated right along with it. After nearly 100 years of practice, however, businesses are finally starting to rethink the 8-hour day and 5-day workweek. It turns out that what worked best in the factory, may not actually work best in an office.

For one thing, the specific nature of the work done by most office workers is vastly different from that of factory workers. Factory workers worked on an assembly line, which meant they did one thing and thing only again and again, day after day. After around 8 hours, their work may have become sloppy or they may have slowed down, which was why productivity dropped. The modern office worker, however, generally has a dozen or more different tasks to accomplish each day. The higher mental requirements of the modern office worker means they may have fewer truly productive hours in each day.

In addition, energy levels tend to wane over the course of the week, leading to a slump closer to the end. In fact, employees may subconsciously “pace” themselves to spread their work out over the course of a 5-day week, knowing they will be drained and exhausted by the 5th day. The truth is, that by shortening a week to 4 days, employees may accomplish just as much in a shorter period of time because they don’t have to conserve energy to carry them through 5 days.

When you consider the daily operating expenses of a business, even paying the same wages, salaries and benefits to employees working a 4-day week versus a 5-day week might actually save businesses money. In addition, by offering more flexible schedules, businesses may even be able to hire more employees without having to increase the size of their office. Ultimately, there may be a significant number of advantages to a 4-day workweek, which more and more businesses seem willing to explore.