Dreaming of a 4-day work week or extended paid vacation? It could be closer than you think
Well, between all the snow this week and all the cancellations that came with it, balancing life and work has been a pickle. Now imagine if you had an extra day off built into your life to deal with it. A major four-day work week pilot program just wrapped up in the U.K. This is the biggest one ever. And the results are giving hope to anyone who desires a better work-life balance. Here's Kent.
The U.K.'s four-day work week pilot program was impressive in both its scope and its simplicity. The only limitation was 100% pay, 80% in terms of hours. And the key is can you maintain productivity? Because if you can't maintain productivity, then you're just simply going to cut the pay. Chris Ferrell, senior economics contributor for NPR News and Marketplace says the results grabbed headlines because after six months not only do employees still favor sticking with a four-day week, but so do their employers. Well, certainly was not surprised that people liked it at all.
But to be fair, it's not surprising to anyone after a week like this in Minnesota. I'm working from home. My wife and I are trying to adjust to this extended cancellation of daycare. And so I've got my son eating some lunch next to me. How old are you son? He's two and a half. Say hi, Eli. Hi.
How are you, Eli? We're going to do our best. You're balanced on a clothes drying wrap right now. So when we talk about four-day work weeks, I wish that I had a four-day work week right now because it's a little difficult balancing this little guy and this little job. There's lots and lots of people who identify. Turns out employers identify too. According to the study, companies of different sizes tested different four-day week combinations from Fridays off for all to staggered schedules. And the vast majority still maintained productivity while seeing employee burnout decrease by 71%.
This actually is healthy for the bottom line. This is healthy for society. It's healthy for your employees. At least in these experiments, the evidence that we have is that employees do their job. That's no surprise to at least one local employer. I believe that to some extent HR is PR. Darren Lynch is founder and CEO of Irish Titan, which builds e-commerce websites for brands from the Minnesota Wild to Lifetime Fitness.
He says his employees are only expected at the office twice a week and offered unlimited PTO, and yet he still worries about them working too much. For every incident of someone abusing, for lack of a better way to put it, an open PTO policy, for every one incident of those, we'd have 99 of people not taking as much time as they really should to maintain some refreshed mentality. Which is why they recently adopted a new mandatory two weeks of uninterrupted PTO for every employee every year. Get out of here, go do a staycation if you want, go to Iceland if you want, do whatever you feel you need to do for your own well-being so you can come back with a mentally refreshed head. He says it took two years to figure out how to make it work, and pulling off a four-day week he says may be even harder due to client expectations. I think it's worth considering, I just don't know how much of a sea change it would need to happen across enough businesses to reach critical mass where then it works. There's a lot of reasonable skepticism there, but what the pilot programs are doing is giving some data, giving some evidence.
And so far, what the evidence seems to be supporting is that as an organization, you're healthier and you're still able to do the job that your organization is designed to do. For the record, Chris does think that it will take a few years for that sea change to happen. So until then, we're just going to make do and say back to you, Jana. Bye, you, Dad. almighty.
breaking-the-news, local, news