THE FOUR DAY WORK WEEK: THE TREND WORTH FOLLOWING

Well, one very clear and purposeful way we can move towards a better life balance is by switching to a four-day week. It may sound like a pipe dream. But it's increasingly a reality for millions.

MAKING IT MAINSTREAM

The country of Iceland has led the way, with trials in which workers were paid the same amount for shorter weeks between 2015 and 2019. According to researchers, productivity remained the same or improved in most cases, and now similar trials are being run across the world, from Spain to New Zealand. And within the creative industries, too, four-day weeks are becoming an increasingly mainstream strategy.

IT'S NO PICNIC

However, I must admit at the start, it can be a shock to the system, as you have to plan your time much more carefully than you did before. It’s no picnic but having a day dedicated to self-care makes me a much more productive person when I return to my desk on a Monday morning.?

THE NUMBERS TO CONVINCE US

When we’ve been set in our ways for so long it’s inevitable there’s often a reaction against anything new. What’s interesting is looking at lots of historical newspaper articles critiquing the eight-hour day and the two-day weekend – the arguments haven’t evolved at all. There were worries [about productivity and pay]. The economy certainly hasn’t collapsed, in fact, it’s grown in terms of productivity and GDP by many times what we could have ever imagined. Convincing right?

Work ethic has become this new religious drive whereby work is seen as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. Doing work and talking about work is seen as an important moral thing. The productive individual is seen as inherently worthwhile. You can see it in the way that people at the top talk about their impossible working schedules – tech CEOs saying they get up at 3am. The design is to show a certain level of self-sacrifice.

IT'S ABOUT EXPERIMENTATION

?We’re a small business, so it’s easier to experiment, but it’s a big shift in normal working behaviour and practices. You need to rethink how the team collaborates and communicates.

This is such a cliché, but not being afraid to fail is important. Implementing any flexible work practice will need a trial, but the impact, not only on the business but society as a whole and personally, is huge. It can alleviate childcare responsibilities, put less strain on the NHS and improve your own mental health. I think it should be done and it can be done, but it does take a lot of leadership and really believing it can work.

But the lingering question is, can the four-day work week work for everyone??

?

The four-day work week reignites an essential but long-forgotten moral project: making life less about work.