Will the Covid-19 pandemic open the door to a four-day workweek?
The world is watching New Zealand. Decisive early action, along with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s empathetic style of leadership, quashed the country’s coronavirus outbreak in fewer than 50 days, earning it a place on the shortlist of nations the rest of the world is looking to for guidance — not just on how to fight the initial wave of the pandemic, but on what could come next.
So, when Ardern uploaded a video to Facebook last week floating the idea of a four-day workweek, an audience outside New Zealand took notice, judging by the headlines. Amid the flexibility companies have had to show in response to the novel coronavirus crisis, what once in many quarters would have come across as a fringe notion no longer seemed so unthinkable.
Ardern said she was looking for creative ways to stimulate domestic tourism, to help the industry recover as the country begins to reopen with strict border measures still in place. But she couched the idea in the context of broader changes to the workplace wrought by the pandemic. “I’ve heard lots of people suggesting we should have a four-day week,” she said. “Ultimately, that really sits between employers and employees.”
“I’d really encourage people to think about that, if you’re an employer and in a position to do so,” Ardern said, “if that’s something that would work for your workplace.”
Better productivity
Long before the coronavirus pandemic upended life on every continent, the four-day workweek was gaining a global cohort of converts, according to Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, the author of Shorter: Work Better, Smarter, and Less
— Here’s How. For his research, Pang spent time in offices that had implemented the policy in Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea the United Kingdom, the United States and Scandinavian countries to track why they were making the shift. “It’s not just touchy-feely social democracies that are doing it,” he said, but also countries where “overwork is the norm.”
Some studies show workplace productivity and satisfaction go up under a shorter, more compressed schedule.
Finland’s prime minister has touted the idea, the UK’s Labour Party has campaigned on it, and companies including Microsoft in Japan and Shake Shack in the United States have succeeded
I’ve heard lots of people suggest we should have a four-day week. I would really encourage people to think about that... if that’s something that would work for your workplace.”
Jacinda Ardern | New Zealand Prime Minister
in trying out versions of it. While not all have ultimately stayed, one study in the UK last year found 64 per cent of leaders of businesses with four-day workweeks saw an increase in staff productivity, while 77 per cent of workers linked it to a better quality of life. The same study cited bureaucratic hurdles like contracts as among the major limitations.
Accelerating timeline
That’s in part why before the pandemic, Karen Jansen, a researcher on organisational behaviour in the UK, estimated a major shift toward the shorter workweek wouldn’t happen before 2030. Now, she said, the coronavirus is “accelerating” that timeline.
“It used to be that flexible work arrangements were a bit stigmatised,” she said. “Those negatives I think are going away. Covid has had a levelling effect.”
“This experience has taught us that we don’t have to have a one-size-fits-all model for everyone,” Jansen added. “The question, I think, is who is going to go back to the old way.”