A very interesting experiment conducted by Microsoft Japan resulted in a 40% productivity increase.
I’m wondering whether this would work in your field?
I seem to recall that Tom (or perhaps another member of our C-Suite) was asked this some time ago in a Company All Hands and a very considered answer was given about why we suspected it would not work for us, barring a wider cultural shift towards this. I wish I could remember more details, but it was fascinating.
Would this work in your area of business? Would love to hear the why’s and why nots!
Great idea. I can opt into this kind of thing at work. Can choose to do a compressed work week. I’ve not tried it personally because I prefer the flexibility of flexi time instead.
As a software developer this would work for me, as long as the team I work in had cover for all days however I wouldn’t want to do it personally unless I could choose which extra day I had off
My employer offers a range of working patterns and as a Product Manager it suits. I find having flexibility means that I work better. When I having a good day I give it everything and on a meh day I take it easy and dont burn out. I used to work compressed hours over 4 days. How I miss my Fridays off.
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Anarchist
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A lot of NHS workers are effectively working a four day week. Think of those on 12 hour shifts on a 37.5 hour week.
Certainly it would work in the software business I work in but I’m not sure if I’d go for it. Less time in the evenings and chances are id probably end up spending more money because I’d have longer weekends
However this isn’t what Microsoft did. They cut the work week by one day, it wasn’t compressed hours.
This saw an increase in productivity and decrease in energy and resource use among other things including I imagine happier staff. It forces you to be more efficient.
There’s two ways to do it. The U.K. primarily has compressed hours. But there’s no reason we couldn’t do shorter work weeks where people can be more productive.
Not sure how to interpret your post (sincerely); so it wouldn’t necessarily work in your specific field when it is busy because you’d have to hire more people - therefore increased costs. But the question is; why hire more people?
I meant that it would improve morale and ease stress and make work more enjoyable if they cut hours ( and not the salary) especially as the job can get intensive, but the office still needs to be staffed so they would need to hire more people which costs alot.
Even without knowing any specific details of a situation, it seems straightforward to me that in the case of a business operating the whole week, or six days a week, or even five days a week if they’re (a) already running lean, (b) can’t shut down, that putting people on four days a week means that said people working days 1-4 may be dandy, but you then need more staff to ensure that there are people working days 5-7 also (or 4-7 if both sets of staff work the same hours, and allows for a handover period).
I’d expect my local supermarket to have to find a lot more staff if they moved to four-day work weeks for their staff, for example.