A four-day work week is a resounding success the TCI should embrace it

COVID-19 ruptured the world. It stimulated virtual learning among students at all levels, forced its inhabitants to work from home and inspired the “Great Resignation,” the voluntary mass employees’ resignations from the workforce, during the recent pandemic.

One of the lessons derived from the COVID-19 pandemic is, after extended periods of working from home with no commuting, many people have determined that a work-life balance should be priority.

As is, employees within TCI’s public sector have a five-day work week, while most workers inside the private sector have a six-day

BY D MARKIE SPRING

work schedule. Historically, the five-day work week was adopted by an American mill in 1908 and became standard during the Great Depression.

The six-day work schedule; however, was embraced by most private sector companies in Great Britain in the late 19th century, when factory owners gave their workers a half day on Saturday before their rest day on Sunday.

Fast forward, it is the end of 2022 and headlines began erupting across news media, heralding the dawn of a new work policy – a four-day work week – in countries worldwide.

Researchers tested a large-scale, independent pilot programme, which follows the “100-80-100” model: 100 per cent pay for 80 per cent of the time, in return for their commitment to retain 100 per cent productivity.

Since then, the Washington Post is reporting that advocacy group, “4 Day Week Global,” in collaboration with the research group, “Anatomy,” and researchers at Boston College and the University of Cambridge conducted the world’s largest fourday workweek trials.

Dozens of companies and over 3000 employees in Britain participated. The results were favourable and the participating companies have decided to keep the arrangement. More so, 15 per cent of the employee involved touted, no amount of money would convince them to go back to the old schedule!

Henceforth, the TCI is encouraged to embrace such a phenomenon. Government and private sector companies must espouse different methods to ‘meaningfully’ lessen the work week, from the two and one rests days, respectively, to a 32-hour per week schedule – while ensuring 100 per cent of their pay.

The experiment purports, if countries like the TCI adopt this arrangement, employers and employees alike are bound to gain enormously. It would allow workers’ monophasic sleep patterns, and dramatic improvements in the level of stress, private lives and mental health of individuals.

Broadly, companies’ revenues are expected to remain the same; however, participating companies showed a 35 per cent increase in their revenues on average and resignations reduced remarkably – covering a similar period in previous years.

Reflecting on the trial, 56 of the participating companies are implementing the new policy –18 of which have already made it permanent; howbeit, two companies extended the trial, while three decided to scrap the four-day work schedule.

If this trend holds, it would likely spotlight a shorter work week among companies worldwide and the TCI should embrace such a policy, as a possible solution to the extreme level of employee burnout – calling on corporations to withdraw the five-day work week to a more flexible working schedule instead.

The TCI must accelerate with the world or be left behind. However, this is not an impulsive call to implement a four-day work week but to test the idea and weigh the benefits.