Four-day week a leap of faith
OPINION: Monday, Tuesday, Dayoffday, Thursday, Friday and repeat.
Welcome to your new working ‘‘week’’. Work four days, paid for five. What’s the bad bit? I can’t find it.
Andrew Barnes, from Perpetual Guardian, is the new messiah to his 200-plus staff. He’s running a six-week trial. Across the week workers have a day off – it’s staggered so not everyone can have Friday or Monday off, nor do they actually want that.
It works like this. Pick a day you’d like to have off – and take it. It would be life changing; no longer would you be welded to your job, you might get a glimpse of what life could be like. It won’t be for all businesses but it’s a discussion worth having.
Barnes is adamant it’ll work for him and his business. He wants productivity. He doesn’t care about hours spent at a desk, he simply wants results.
If you can match or better your five-day results over four days then your reward may be heading
Some US companies say they didn’t realise what productivity was until they went this way.
No-one works eight hours a day. It’s a myth. Yes, we’re at work but it’s a total waste of time, everyone’s time. Studies show only three hours of actual work may be done across eight hours.
For Barnes, it’s all about incentives. Once employees realise how good a four-day week is, they’re desperate to hold on to it. So it incentivises them to work their butts off over that four days.
Some of Barnes’ former staff members rang him last week once they heard what he was doing. They were highly annoyed. If they’d known they would never have resigned!
So, it buys loyalty. That’s huge. So, is all this new? No. We’ve already officially tried this. Nelson artist and former Green MPMike Ward pushed for a French-style 35-hour working week. I remember it well. I did the story for the Holmes programme in 2002. It was shot down by corporates. And Labour wouldn’t have a bar of it. Helen Clark the centrist was already fighting business and putting out