Should we move to a 4-day working week?

There are also claims that a 4-day week would be better for gender equality and childcare, as caring responsibilities could be better spread across both parent’s rotas. One day of the week, parents wouldn’t need childcare at all. 4-Day Week Global seem to be under the impression that two days of childcare wouldn’t be needed, but this choice wouldn’t be the parents. That would come down to which days their employers wish them to work. There’s no guarantee that one parent would work Tuesday to Friday whilst the other worked Monday to Thursday.

So, would a 4-day week benefit me as an employee? Well, financially, yes. I would only have to commute four days a week, meaning I would save one round trip a week in fuel and wear and tear on my car. That being said, I would probably spend my new day off at home…would I, therefore, spend more on gas, electric and water instead?

Once at work, I’d still have the same amount to do, just fewer days to complete it. To make up for this, I would apparently need to work smarter or harder. Does this not sound offensive to you? My employer, if going for this approach, would essentially be saying, ‘we believe you can work harder than you were before,’ and questioning my effort. What would really happen is that you would end up staying at work on those four days for longer, to make up for lost time. This would mean less free time when you got home in the evening. With less time to relax, I would find myself more stressed when trying to get to sleep. And if our sleep is negatively impacted, this ‘great idea’ could become the greatest challenge to our mental health we’ve seen.

It just seems to be one of those initiatives that sounds great, but when you actually break it down, you realise you’ll actually be worse off. I appreciate that this is just my opinion, but I believe many people will agree with me. Change is an important thing, but a 5-day working week has been the status quo for a long time and I don’t believe it needs changing. Companies should be looking into how they can improve the wellbeing of their employees— this 4-day week seems just a façade to me. It’s the perfect way to hide cost-saving measures…sell it as something that boosts employee wellbeing.