Positive Effects Of Four Day Workweek

The reading states that the conversion from 5-day workweek to 4-day workweek offers numerous benefits to both businesses and employees and should be seriously considered and provides three reasons of support. However, the professor states that the benefits do not justify this dramatic change and refutes each of the authors' reasons.

    Another reason why switching to a 4 day week is because it improves academic and morale performances. According to a paper, a fourth grade math scores went up over the course of a 4 day school week. Also, work employees morale goes up because they get to spend

If simplified, the disconnect in family life can be put into a broader category of the consequences that come with the length of time an individual spends in the workplace. Thus, the disconnect in family life transforms from merely a personal trouble for the Filimundus employees into a social issue of the length of time spent in the workplace. The historical factors behind the traditional eight-hour workday come from the Industrial Revolution, where new companies started to maximize the output of their factories by having workers in the factory all day in order to run the machinery. Eight-hour shifts allowed for exactly three rotations of employees running the machines for twenty-four hours straight, repeating each day. However, companies began to exploit their workers and made them grind out even longer shifts. Henry Ford was the man who officially installed a policy of an eight-hour workday, giving his employees a limit to how long they could work (Widrich 2014). The Industrial Revolution also brought about the disconnect in family life. No longer were families a unit, because they did not have to toil together on the farm. Instead, parents entered the work force and children attended school, separating the family. This history behind the eight-hour workday shows how it affected and still affects the modern and postmodern

In this set of materials, the writer discusses the benefits of four-day work week for companies, the whole economy, and individuals. However, the lecturer is in disagreement with what the writer states.

When considering the change from 5 to 4-day workweeks it is important to choose which path the department would like to pursue. The 32-hour 4-day workweek or the 4-day 10-hour workweek. By increasing the workday to 10 hours a day, there may be a need for more breaks within one day. This can be done and worked through, but will cause a problem if employee and employer don't agree.

The reading and the lecture are both about a law that allows companies to hire employees for a four-day week work. The author of the reading believes that four-day workweek might be beneficial for employees, companies and the community as a whole and provides some reasons. The lecturer casts doubt on the claims made in the article. He argues that four-day workweek has not valuable outcome for the economy and it cause increasing costs and has no economical benefit.

Chapter: 4 Hours for What We Will" Work, Family, and the Demand for Shorter Hours

Covert, Bryce. “The truth about the 40-hour workweek: it’s actually 47 hours long.” Think Progress. 2017 Think Progress, 2 Sept 2014. https://thinkprogress.org/the-truth- about-the-40-hour-workweek-its-actually-47-hours-long-685c7b63f1b8/

An increasing number of people especially in the western industrialized countries of the world are working longer hours than people did in the past few decades. As a result, less time is being spent on activities such as family care or leisure, creating an imbalance of time spent between work and home life. In Britain for example, prospects for a work-life balance for many workers appear to be slipping away; Britons work the longest number of hours in Europe and one in six work more than 60 hours a week! (Crush, 2011).

An alternative work schedule refers to the rearrangement of the schedules that allows changes from the employees’ core hours of starting and departure times but the rearrangement does not alter the overall number of hours that an employee works in a week (Koenen & Kok, 2014). The start and departure times may be fixed then periodically selected within a specified period with exactly same number of working hours in a day. However, the starting and departure times can change on daily basis with personalized work schedule in which a staff worker may come to work and depart at different times each single day. This is the reason why alternative work schedule is also known as variable work hours. Alternative work schedules comprise three strategies: compressed work weeks, flextime and staggered shifts. In flextime, the employees work in specified hours each week although they are accorded flexibility regarding the time of arrival, break hours, lunch break and departure time. In compressed work weeks, the employees usually work for extra hours than the normal but in a week they work for fewer days in a week or pay period. In staggered shifts, the employees report and leave the work place at various times in shifts. The various shifts could be staggered from fifteen minutes to two hours (Koenen & Kok, 2014).

The flexible workplace began with a simple concept and basic structure. According to the U.S. Department of Labor website on work hours (n.d.), “A flexible work schedule is an alternative to the traditional 9 to 5, 40-hour work week. It allows employees to vary their arrival and/or departure times. Under some policies, employees must work a prescribed number of hours a pay period and be present during a daily core time.” While many believe this definition of flextime to be the basis of flexible working, the flexible workplace trend is growing even beyond that. The newest trends beyond flextime include compressing the workweek, allowing flexible locations for work, job sharing, extended leaves of absence, phased and partial retirements, and work/family programs. With an increasing amount of support, flexible workplaces are rapidly growing within the United States.

The idea of only working a four-day work week sounds appealing to most people and I don’t blame them for liking the idea. The idea brings upon great benefits like, saving money on commuting costs, companies will save money on operating expenses, and many more things that can catch your attention. It all looks great on paper or when you hear it on a television special showing how people are enjoying life in countries that have adapted this work ideology. For many of us that do work a full time job, working an eight hour day is tough as it is. When asked to stay for a an hour , usually you’re not going to be as productive or carry a high morale as you did in the previous dreaded 8 hours of work. It’s hard to imagine being able to enjoy doing that for four consecutive days a week working a ten-hour workday. Like many things they seem great on paper, but only time and results tell the dark truth of a doomed idea.

The world of work is transmuting. The working patterns experienced by the post-war baby boomer generation (born: 1946–1964) are no longer acceptable to much of generation X (born: 1965–1980) or the millennial generation (born: 1981–2000). Work-life balance has entered the business lexicon and it is here to stay. From the perspective of employers often faced with skills shortages and skills gaps. Provision of flexible working arrangements is now part and parcel of the brand image of many organisations, particularly where the labour market for staff is global – where it was once national or even local. Moreover, in a world of always-on, always-connected economies, the line between work and home is becoming increasingly blurred.

One hour a day, two days a week. Pitter Pitter Pitter. “Meet George Jetson….” Creators of the show The Jetsons imagined that in the future, American workers such as George Jetson would hardly work in a given week, even as little as one hour a day, two days a week. A less extreme prediction by British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted in 1930 that in the year 2030, workers will only only work about 15 hours per week. (Bregman) If asked whether they would want to work longer hours or have more free time, most Americans today would want more free time. If a shorter work week is so appealing, then why do we still put up with a 40 hour work week? Where is George Jetson? As evidence from multiple other countries has shown, a shorter week could reduce unemployment, improve productivity, and increase mental health standards, and the United States should discard the current 40 hours a work system in exchange for a shorter, more practical one.

Working parents can experience better satisfaction and balance in their lives when they are able to balance all their responsibilities in a more efficient manner. In as early as the late 1990’s, 27% of workers varied their hours in some degree. Executive, administrative and managerial positions have the highest frequencies of flex time while sales have the highest utilization according to Flexible schedules and shift work: replacing the '9-to-5 ' workday. (Beers, 2000). However all many positions such as those in the health care industry have opportunties to allow flexible work schedules can come into play.