Work week

Is a four-day work week appropriate for Rockdale businesses?

Recently the Rockdale Independent School District sent out a message to parents asking if they would like to move to a four-day week instead of five days. It made us wonder how this would go over.

For parents with students under ages 10 or 11 this could cause some issues getting childcare which can be expensive. We wondered if moving Rockdale businesses to a four-day work week would work for everyone. It could work for a newspaper, but what about other businesses?

Banks can’t be closed for more than three days in a row, so they would be okay. Restaurants would probably not want to lose a whole day of revenue. For a lot of businesses it may come down to what the owner of the company wants.

Aside from helping out the parents on younger children, are there any other benefits of moving to a four-day work week?

As it turns out, the answer is yes according to a study reported on by Ereritus.com. The concept of the four-day work week has been around for many years, but it was not until the late 20th century that it began to gain traction. It allows employees to receive the same salary while only having to work 80 percent of the required time. This means that employees need to maintain the same level of productivity on the days they are working.

In 2019, Microsoft Japan became the first major company to implement a four-day work week. The experiment was a success, and productivity increased by 40 percent. In the wake of this success, many other companies followed suit. Feedback received from workers in different parts of the globe has further strengthened the case for its implementation.

Some of the benefits include an improvement of employee morale, it enhances employee work-life balance, it saves the company money through electricity and other utilities and boosting employee creativity.

Are there any cons to moving to a four-day work week? The answer is yes, but with Microsoft’s 40 percent increase in productivity, the good seems to outweigh the bad.

Some of the cons mentioned are increased workload for employees, some employees may be less productive, reduced communication because of working one less day per week and reduced benefits in some cases like holidays and sick days.

Some of the strategies companies are using to succeed in a four-day work week include clear communication about expectations of employees, flexible scheduling by letting employees pick which d ay of t he week to b e off t hat b est suits them and the company, focusing on quality work, technology integration for better communication and employee engagement because flexibility leads to improved job satisfaction.

Especially after COVID-19 changed so many things, employees are calling for greater levels of flexibility, a better equilibrium between work and personal life, and more freedom to choose the ideal time, place and method of executing their roles—something a four-day work week seems primed to do according to this study.

—K.W.C.