Ever since the Industrial Revolution, the working week has been getting shorter. Six days of ten hours have gradually given way to five days of eight hours. The likelihood of a four-day working week is getting closer. The global experience of a pandemic and remote work/working from home has accelerated a trend that was becoming apparent in recent years - the impending demise of the nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday routine.
Last month a trial was launched in the UK, embracing 70 firms and 3,300 employees. They are testing a model called "100-80-100". It looks like this: you receive 100% of your salary; you work for just 80% of your current time, but you commit to deliver 100% of your erstwhile productivity. The outcomes from the trial, which spans different sectors of the economy, will be carefully studied (though there's no control group, so reference will be with historical performance). It will be a balance between output, efficiency, customer satisfaction on one hand; staff satisfaction and staff retention (a big issue) on the other.
On Wednesday, we held a seminar on the subject in Warsaw, with experts from CBRE (world's largest real-estate agents), recruitment firm Hays and the Polish offices of Magic Circle law firm, Linklaters. Interest was such that people (mainly head of HR) were standing at the back of the room, despite extra chairs being brought in.
The subject is fascinating, because it applies to everyone - employer, employee, customer, client, consumer - voter - a change like this will touch the life of one and all. But equally? A long weekend would be fine. But as consumers, we're getting accustomed to a 24/7 lifestyle - if you want pizza and beer at 2am, someone will have to prepare the order and someone else will have to deliver it.
Will Thursday be the new Friday? Most likely. Some people will want Monday off, some rare folk will happily swap Friday for a Wednesday off.
This excellent Alex cartoon from earlier this year (it's so cleverly done - you need to be aware of what the British mean when they say "see you next Tuesday") holds some important truths. A short office week is seen as a luxury, a perk, a status symbol...
Returning to work after a break requires a bit of readjustment. The longer off work, the longer the readjustment. In the 1970s and '80s, there existed the concept of a 'Wednesday car' - one that rolled off the production line midweek, when factory workers were most focused on their job, and not re-living the weekend or looking forward to the next one. (Gone now - Total Quality Management, Six Sigma and robots put paid that.) But there's still something there... Hands up who would willingly hold a conference or seminar or workshop on a Monday or a Friday?
So in the medium term - in a perspective of five to ten years, the four-day working week is almost certain - in corporations at least. But how about the public sector? Will the legally obligatory '30 days to reply' stretch out to 40, or will calendar days still count? Will government offices be open on Fridays? How about shift workers? People ensuring essential cover for our 24-hours-on economy? Will their working week also be cut back to 32 hours - but different hours to the vast majority of office workers?
Parkinson's Law famously states that work expands to fill time time allotted to it. A four-day working week (assuming the 100/80/100 model) will mean cramming in five day's work into four days. Doable? Cut out all the chats over the coffee machine, the cigarette breaks, the sneaky peaks at your social media account, the sheer time spent not working - and a lot can be done. The notion of a 'power hour' of intensive, focused effort proves that effectiveness is a mind-over-matter thing, a question of self-discipline. If the reward for that effort is a weekend extended by 50% - then many employees will judge that the effort is indeed worth it. If work expands to fill time allotted to it, cutting that time may indeed make that work more productive.
But are we all happy working? The 80/80/80 model - a pay cut, a shorter working week and lower output - may also make sense to people who are already financially comfortable and don't feel the need to push themselves for the money. The stress of having to be 20% more productive generates cortisol, the 'fight-or-flight' hormone that has a negative long-term effect on the human body. Younger people whose biggest financial challenge is to buy (or rent) a roof over their heads may feel up to taking on that challenge. But values are changing. The desire to consume in order to show off is in decline; fewer young people want to do a job they hate to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't like. Consumerism is being eroded by more elevated motives; the notion of living to work is being replaced by the notion of working to live.
How about my working life? I offer a different model to 100/80/100. I keep no timesheets, I work at my own pace. During the working day, I'll close my laptop for an hour and half and go for a walk, or go shopping, or a have an extended lunch, or a nap. But if stuff needs to be done, it gets done; if there's a deadline, if something's urgent, it gets done quickly. I'm contactable. But I'm not one for 'pro-activity' - for me a term that suggests selling people things they don't need (like membership when it's clear they can't benefit from it). You think I'm lazy? When necessary, I'll work Saturdays and Sundays, and that's quite often. I'll work until late into the evenings, again, when needed, usually because I've chosen to do my own thing between 9am and 5pm. I've not had a summer holiday since 2014, so I tend to hold the fort in July and August. I enjoy my work, feel a sense of duty, loyalty and commitment to the BPCC (20 years in September!), to its members, and above all to my colleagues - who know they can trust me to get things done just as I know I can trust them. My pay reflects the value placed upon it - not hours. So for me, the notion of 'work-life' balance is meaningless; work is one of those things I do because they interest me and I find them fulfilling. My work is as much an enjoyable hobby as blogging or walking, but it's the one that pays the bills.
A society-wide change to a four-day working week would not affect the way I work. I prefer to work extensively than intensively.
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2 comments:
From a perspective of a corporate employee...
If I were told to deliver 100% of my productivity... I would ask how you define productivity. Is it the total output or output per hour worked?
I would assume my employer would ask me to do the same stuff in a shorter time frame, which would bring me no benefit. My current workload is more than 40 hours of productive work a week, I have to work (upaid) overtime to complete all my assignment timely. With a four-day working week, I would work (upaid) overtime even more. The only change I would experience would be a feeling of being a sucker. Can you sense a frustration spilling over from this reply?
Committees, meeting, workshops, discussions - whether on Monday mornings, Friday afternoons or Wednesdays, it does not matter much to me, as long as they fit within my working hours and do not stretch into late afternoons.
From my observation, the 80/80/80 model tends not to work properly, i.e. if you are paid for tasks completed, not for hours worked, you get as much work as full-time workers, but are paid only 80% of a salary and thus end up as a sucker.
The concept you dwell on will be inevitably pursued in some time, but I would opt for a 32-hour working week, with possibly much flexibility - an employee ought to choose whether to work 5 days a week in shorter hours, or 4 days a week with 8 hours per day and on which day to be off. Also public services (urzędy, etc.) should work 5 days a week and adjust opening hours to their customers needs.
100/80/100 implies that most people are intrinsically unproductive but can do better. I sense that my public sector employer would prefer 80/100/125.
Cynicism apart, we do have a serious productivity issue in the UK. Some of that comes down to insufficient investment in technology. But too little taking of responsibility and a pervading difficulty in taking decisions play their parts too.
Can we go for 100/80/100 when productivity is weak? What about 100/90/110 where both employer and employee receive a benefit?
In my line of work I find myself working more than my contracted hours and that isn't terrible when I am doing interesting and worthwhile work (and get paid for the value of what I add.) Where could productivity improve? Chiefly, I think, in being permitted by the organisation to take decisions without a series of committees. Well advised, yes, but still taking responsibility.
And why doesn't that "guiding mind" approach work? In my experience, because senior people have such full diaries that they rarely have time to sit quietly and think. It's a vicious circle that requires a revolution to bring about change.
And anyway we appraise everything to death using elaborate analytical formulae that mask our propensity to evade responsibility and avoid decisions.
I hope that things are better in Poland ...
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