Page 26 - PWM2024_MARCH EBOOK

TECHNOLOGY REPORT

Fitting a quart into a pint pot

level of output as an employee working a five-day week.”
eyond these considerations, the pan- She adds that the concept of the four-day week shouldn’t
be confused with compressed hours – where the usual
The Covid pandemic demic altered how society felt about the 40-hour week is worked over four days.
work/life balance with some effectively
changed so much. It demanding to work (more) from home, The concept of a four-day working week isn’t new.
redefined retail, B work less hard or, in a good proportion of Throughout the last century, many, including econo-
forced organisations cases, leave the workforce entirely. mists, psychologists, philosophers, politicians and others,
to change working With a redefinition of the importance that individuals debated a reduction in working hours. Indeed, in a speech
practices, led to the attach to workplace flexibility and benefits, employers in 1965, Richard Nixon, then the nation’s vice president,
called for a four-day working week to improve American
rise of remote work- wanting to recruit in a tight labour market need to con- families’ lives. At the time he said that “our hope is to dou-
sider how they use the tools at their disposal, of which the
ing, and proved that four-day week is one. ble everyone’s standard of living in 10 years”.
technology has a very But while talking about the four-day week, Gordon
distinct role to play in The four-day working week defined notes that it was only at the beginning of the 20th century
keeping commercial To describe the four-day week, Lucy Gordon, a director that the UK ended the then traditional six-day working
plates spinning. at Walker Morris, uses the example of the notional full- week. But times have changed and as Gordon comments,
time employee who traditionally works five eight-hour “the pandemic was a catalyst for accelerated changes to
days a week. They would simply reduce their hours to the world of work, causing both employers and workers
Words by work only four eight-hour days a week instead (totalling to reflect on what they value most”. She says that for
Adam Bernstein 32 hours), while still receiving their full-time, 40-hour many, “removing the commute and spending more time
week salary. with family and pursuing hobbies and interests resulted
“The rationale,” she says, “is that employees working in a paradigm shift towards more flexible ways of work-
those hours will, so the hypothesis goes, give the same ing; remote, hybrid, flexible, part-time, and so on”. In her

26 PrintWeek MENA March 2024 www.printweekmena.com