The COVID-19 pandemic has convinced entrepreneurs that it is feasible to work out of the office. But in recent years, tests have appeared to go even further, with the workweek reduced. The main argument behind this is to enhance the welfare of workers, who will respond with more job incentive. With it, they will maintain the same productivity, or in the worst case, they will have minimal losses.
The latest news in this regard came from the United Kingdom. The state began a pilot project in June with 3,300 workers from 70 companies, from areas ranging from software training to fish and chip restaurants. They will get 100% of their salary for six months, but they will only work four days a week. In return, they will try to maintain 100% of their previous productivity, achieved during five working days a week. The tests have been backed by the government and are expected to begin later this year in Spain and Scotland.
4 Day Week Global is the NGO responsible for the project in the UK and is trying to get support from more companies to run exams in the US and Canada. The organization was co-founded by Andrew Barnes, president of New Zealand real estate firm Perpetual Guardian. After reading several articles about productivity, Barnes began an eight-week trial in March 2018 with all of his 240 employees at the time, who were given one paid day off per week.
The results announced by the company were evaluated by two universities in Auckland. Participation levels increased between 30 and 40%; Work-life balance measures grew 44%; Regulatory compliance rose by 29%.
Iceland also conducted two tests between 2015 and 2019, with 2,500 public sector employees working four days a week. The researchers said productivity remained the same or improved in most workplaces.
The trend continues in more countries. In August, 20 companies in Australia and New Zealand will conduct a four-day, six-month workweek. The UAE has reduced the length of the working week in the public sector since January.
How can you work less time and give more?
In the Perpetual Guardian study, Barnes justified his decision to reduce the workday: “(It was) the right thing to do. We want people to be at their best while in the office, but also at home. Natural.”
The Brazilian constitution guarantees a maximum of eight hours per day and 44 hours per week in the working day and already provides for reduced working hours. Therefore, there will be no need to create a specific law, as long as it does not reduce the salary. If the idea is to reduce the maximum working time as a whole, this will only be possible through a constitutional amendment, with votes in favor of three-fifths of Representatives (308 votes) and Senators (49 votes). There is even a study by Dieese with this suggestion, conducted in 2010.
In an interview with Canaltech By email, Joe O’Connor, CEO of 4 Day Week Global, said the form is viable but should be circulated without labor laws needing to change, at least for now.
The five-day workweek has appeared in different industries and countries over a period of 30 to 40 years, and legislation was created to incorporate it only at the end of this cycle, when it was already circulated. Looking now at the four-day week, we do not subscribe to the view that we are at the current stage of the cycle where we will introduce legislation to apply to all parts of the economy.
He sees four different fronts for public authorities to make the form workable:
- Governments can support pilot programs by administering them directly in the public and civil service or by facilitating trials in private companies through grants and subsidies;
- Encourage research from pilot programs to analyze the impact on the company and workers, as well as government participation to analyze macroeconomic, social and environmental indicators;
- Uncover areas that will need more intervention for a smooth transition to a shorter work week, such as agriculture and hospitals, and create the necessary conditions to support change;
- Finally, put the first laws in this sense so that companies reduce the trip without negatively affecting the company or employees, without tampering with social security contributions, annual leave, health insurance, and other benefits.
For Adriana Caldana, professor of management at FEA-RP/USP, this trend shouldn’t flow easily in Brazilian reality. “It’s very hard for us to believe that some companies will do that without a salary cut. We already have a lot of crisis in place, and if companies look at this as another possibility of a salary cut, I think that will be more significant.”
Another challenge is to implement the model in all areas of production and at all hierarchical levels. “While the biggest push has been in traditionally office-based industries such as finance, information technology, software and professional services, we see examples where the shorter workweek has also worked in areas such as manufacturing, retail and hospitality,” O’Connor says. “In a sector of more manual workers, you may have to hire new employees to be able to split the weeks [de trabalho]Caldana argues.
Luciana Romano-Morillas, a professor at the University of the South Pacific who specializes in employment law, thinks it would be a “bias” to imagine that only higher-level professionals could cut their hours.
With the type of work that requires fewer qualifications, there are more professionals available and, therefore, there can be others being hired for the same job without losing the quality of the work offered. Increased technology and this concept of human dignity can ensure that working hours are reduced as a right that can generate significant movement for the economy, and not the other way around, as one would imagine in a more neglected analysis.
Is it in Brazil?
Some companies have taken the initiative to conduct their own tests at their own risk. NovaHaus, a Franca-based technology company (SP), adopted a four-day-weekly business model in March and will remain so until October. The company says the first positive sign was a 100% drop in employee turnover, even as professionals received good offers elsewhere.
“At first, many employees were skeptical and avoided appointments on Wednesday, but after seeing that the company was satisfied with the deliveries made on the four working days, they realized that it was no longer an experience,” Leandro Pires details. , CEO of NovaHaus. The experiment took nearly a year of planning and preliminary studies.
Was a productivity gain equivalent to the day he didn’t work? “In some cases, we saw yes, and in others, no, but the average was higher than we could have imagined,” Pires said. There was also a 5% drop in deliveries, but that was within a 20% reduction in workload. “That means we get a huge increase in productivity. We don’t see that drop as a loss, it’s offset by a drop in turnover, which has been phenomenal,” he adds.
The March fluminense Winnin also followed the trend in August of last year and continues to this day. In February, he conducted an analysis and noted that the work-life balance of employees improved by 17.33% compared to the period before the trial. Interest in mental and physical health increased by 41.93% and productivity by 5.68%.
“Essentially, we learned that some teams fit the new model easier and faster than others, mainly because of how well organized they really are. We also realized that the productivity measurement system was lost and we’re looking forward to getting back to that,” says Winnin CEO Gian Martinez.
The staff don’t have much to complain about the experience. Leandro Cesar Silva, the developer of NovaHaus, claims that it only had positive effects. “The main thing is lower mental fatigue. Previously, I would come to the end of the day completely exhausted. Now, every day I can maintain the same performance and less tired at the end of the working day. With a free day, I am back in the habit of reading and I will go to the cinema more.”
Winnin’s Marketing Analyst Mary Mamdis points out the benefits of always thinking about work processes and vices that lower productivity — “like ‘popular meetings that can be email,'” she jokes — and the biggest career-life balance, where a free day lets you decide Medical appointments, starting a course, or “simply relax your mind and enjoy the benefits of creative entertainment.”
“Measuring the size of working hours is very easy; we, as a society, have been doing it for decades. But measuring productivity within the scope of results is still subjective and relative. Therefore, there is a lot that needs to be done within the companies themselves so that they have favorable working hours environments,” As Pires, of NovaHaus defines it.
