Louise Bloomsfield, one of the British staff who tests the four-day work week in June, says it is possible to “volunteer, learn new skills” or spend more time with family.
The distillery he works for in London, Pressure Drops, will join the massive test in June with 3,000 workers from about 60 companies.
Listed as the largest working day reduction in the world, the program aims to help companies reduce working hours without reducing wages or income.
Similar tests have been carried out in Spain, Iceland, the United States and Canada, and are scheduled to begin in August in Australia and New Zealand.
Alex Sujung-Kim Pang, project director of 4 Day Week Global, a group that supports experiments, says the six-month period in the UK will benefit companies with more time to test and collect data.
Adaptation should be easy for small and medium enterprises, which can implement large changes quickly, he told Agence France-Presse.
According to Pressure Drop, increasing the productivity and well-being of employees helps reduce the company’s carbon footprint.
A short work week is expected to attract new employees and retain the best in the UK, where unemployment is at its lowest level in nearly 50 years, with a record number of vacancies: 1.3 million, with a large number of candidates.
Four day weeks is not for everyone
A short working week is easy to implement in services, and the UK has an advantage in this regard, with the sector accounting for 80% of the UK GDP.
But for businesses like retail, food and beverages, it’s more complicated, says Jonathan Boys of the Institute for Personal Development, a human resources association.
The economist believes that measuring productivity will be the biggest challenge, especially in services, where most jobs are quality and less calculated than factory output.
But for Aidan Harper, co-author of the book Promoting a Four-Day Work Week (“The Case for a Four Day Week”), less-working countries produce more.
“Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands do less work than the United Kingdom and are more productive,” he notes. Greece, on the other hand, is one of the European countries with the longest working hours, but with the lowest productivity, he explains.
Phil McParlane, a recruiter at 4dayweek.io, specializes in flexible, four-hour-a-week business, said the number of companies looking to hire through his site has increased from 30 to 120 over the past two years, reflecting increased flexibility. Looking for work and a better quality of life two years after an infection.
And in Portugal?
Last week, one of the proposed amendments approved in this year’s state budget debate was precisely on this topic: after significant changes to the initial plan, Liverey’s only vice president, Rui Tavares, found approval for the study. The impact of four days a week.
In a special referendum, the proposal put forward by Liverley’s sole vice president in parliament was worthy of a favorable vote for the PS, PAN and BE, as well as a vote for the PCP and a vote against the PSD, Iniciativa Liberal and Chega. Deputy Rui Tavares did not vote on his proposal because he was not a member of the Budget and Finance Committee.
The approved initiative “promotes government research and construction of a pilot program aimed at analyzing and testing new models of the work system, including the use of four-day-weekly and face-to-face hybrid models in various fields. Work and Telecommunications.”
He added that the executive should promote “broad national debate and community consultation on the new model of work organization, including a four-day work week, as a way to promote greater harmony between work and personal and family life.”
In the initial proposal, the Liverey government proposed to encourage the study and construction of a project aimed at testing the 30-hour work week in 04 working days, to be implemented in a group of 100 national companies, registering over the next three years, by 2023.
However, the party later reversed the move with a later attempt.
* Shivani Contegar of AFP; With the Lusa Agency
