Don’t we all just love leaving from work on Fridays? Knowing we won’t be coming back for another two days. But no matter what, you are never mentally, physically or emotionally prepared to face Mondays. Such a bummer, no? While we’ve been lucky sometimes with public holidays falling mid-week and turning it into a four-day working week, it doesn’t happen as often as we’d like (every week, duh!). But what if we tell you this could soon become a reality? *Happy Dancing*
What’s Going On?
There’s a buzz around reducing a five or six-day working week to four days. Reports coming in from the World Economic Forum revealed CEO’s are already talking about it with sociologists, psychologists and policymakers around the world to make it happen. The advantages and the disadvantages of this are being evaluated and analysed by the forum as of now. Based on the results, the judgement will be passed. From the looks of it, we can say it is most likely to fall in our favour.
What’s The Proof?
The discussions happening at Davos, a town in Switzerland, are circling around the advantages that the working class will have if the working days in a week are reduced to four. During this discussion, Adam Grant—who is a psychologist from the Wharton School in Pennsylvania—said,
I think we have some good experiements showing that if you reduce work hours, people are able to focus their attention more effectively, they end up producing just as much, often with higher quality and creativity, and they are also more loyal to the organisations that are willing to give them the flexibility to care about their lives outside of work
The four-day working week might be closer than you think. Psychologist Adam Grant (@adammgrant) and author Rutger Bregman (@rcbregman) explain the benefits of working less. @wharton #wef19 pic.twitter.com/R6f0L8HHYs
— World Economic Forum (@wef) January 24, 2019
A lot of big thinkers, economists, historians and academic researchers are in favour of this change too. They believe, by shortening a working week, people would be happier and more productive, irrespective of their geographical locations. If all this wasn’t proof enough that it’s definitely a good idea, then here’s an actual example of an experiment. A company in New Zealand has already given this four-day working week a trial and has confirmed it will change it into a permanent working routine because of the advantages the trial showcased. Various other studies regarding this topic also revealed that it would help in lowering stress levels, improve work-life balance and job satisfaction and will lead to an increase in productivity by almost 20%.
TBH, I just want it to happen ASAP as I have plans this Friday. Is the higher management listening?
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