Achieving results with the four day work week. Work is an important part of life, but we often hear about the need for a work/life balance. For many people, the working week consists of five long days at the office followed by just two days for the weekend to focus on the other important aspects of our life such as family, friends, and personal hobbies and interests.
But is this set-up really the most beneficial to you as an executive, and for your employees? Or would a four day work week be more suitable to achieving the goals of working more effectively?
The Negative Side of the Five-Day Working Week
Many executives find themselves and their team working long hours, which can have a negative impact on overall productivity. What’s more, those long hours can have a drastic effect on one’s health:
A study looking at published and unpublished data on more than 600,000 individuals from around the world showed a correlation between long working hours and an increased risk of people suffering from coronary heart disease and strokes.
It should go without saying that putting the health of yourself and your colleagues at risk is bad for business.
Moreover, executives must understand that their team has a life outside of work. According to Dr. Jörg Böttcher, realizing this fact can go a long way toward creating the sort of work environment that people actively want to participate in.
Rather than insisting on a five-day working week in which your team looks forward to the weekend beginning Monday morning, creating room for the flexibility of a four-day working week can help your team work more effectively in the workplace.
It also gives them the time they need to accommodate their personal goals as well as their professional duties. This in turn means that your employees will enjoy their work/life balance instead of dreaming about the upcoming weekend when they should be working.
The Benefits of a Four Day Work Week
The advantages of allowing yourself and your team to work four days rather than five are manifold:
- A decreased need for childcare
- More free time and time with the family
- Less commuting
- Increased productivity
- A happier, more enthusiastic workforce
- Employee retention
While some of these points have no direct effect on you as an executive, they nevertheless contribute to your team’s work/life balance. This ultimately has a huge impact on the quality of their work and their ability to work more effectively.
Parents who spend less money on childcare and more time engaging with their children have one less worry on their plate—and can thus focus on being more effective at work. The same goes for more free time; this may be time not spent working, but it also means that hours spent in the office are more productive.
Here, quality is significantly more important than quantity, and that applies to you as the manager just as much as it does to your team.
Having a comfortable work environment is crucial to retaining your employees. After all, as a manager you invest time and the company’s money in training your employees.
Finding ways to making their work experience more enjoyable saves you time and money in the long run because you won’t have to invest in training new employees to replace the ones you’ve lost.
A people-oriented approach to work
At the end of the day, your position as an executive is about the people for whom you are responsible.
Taking a step away from the outdated five-day working week results in happier, refreshed colleagues who are ready and eager to work more effectively on the days they come in.
Though it might sound counterproductive, the four day work week is ultimately a vast improvement for your employees and thus for you and your company.
