Three day weekends are few and far between, but always a treat. Having the opportunity to have one extra day of rest and relaxation prior to enjoying a short, four-day week of work or school is nothing short of a simple pleasure. The public’s enjoyment of three-day weekends and four-day weeks has led to numerous groups of people advocating for the novelty to become the new norm, and it is easy to see why.
Aside from the fact that four day work weeks provide for longer periods of rest and shorter periods of labor, they have also been proven to increase the health and happiness of both workers and students. A recent study that was reported by The Wall Street Journal shows that the workers who participated in a six-month long four-day work week trial experienced less burnout, improved health and greater job satisfaction. The results of the study prove that a shortened work week results in a healthier work-life balance and a greater relationship between a worker and their job.
Opponents to the idea of the four-day work week will argue that the plan results in reduced work efficiency. It may be true that a four-day work week has the potential to cause an incredibly slight loss in productivity, says The Wall Street Journal, but taking into account how a four-day work week enhances worker enjoyment and health, a slight decrease in productivity is a small price to pay for an exuberant and lively workforce.
Another criticism of four-day work weeks revolves around the idea that the system will cause greater stress to workers by compressing the total amount of time that they get to do their work without proportionally shrinking the amount of work in question. The argument is redundant multiple ways because of how it miscalculates and misrepresents the redistribution of exertion and recreation that four-day work weeks provide.
For one, the modest amplification of labor that four-day work weeks provide is balanced out by the extended periods of relaxation and leisure that three-day weekends provide. Although employees may have to exert additional effort in their work if they were to have four days rather than five to get it completed, they will have a full extra day of potential rest that they can fall on to.
The idea that the four-day system’s compressed workload causes stress is also countered by the fact that workers will have more endurance and greater motivation to get their job done if given a shorter week. In other words, the four-day work schedule will disperse the worker in question’s energy for the week to be less spread out thin than usual.
What this means is that although a day in a four-day work week demands more effort than a day in a five-day work week, the same amount of energy will be exerted per week. Everything balances out, which disproves the previous claim.
There is also a high demand for four-day work weeks to be more widely adopted. CNBC cites a Bankrate study which says that 81% of full time workers and job-seekers support a four-day work week over the traditional five-day schedule. With such a large majority of people in support of the cause, it is only a matter of time before four-day work weeks eventually become more widely accepted.
Historical factors are also at play to prove the inevitability of the four-day work week’s eventual adoption. Prior to the 1920s, six-day work weeks and one-day weekends were the cultural norm.
It was not until acclaimed automotive businessman (and known bigot) Henry Ford pushed for the standard work week to be cut down to five days on the basis of greater productivity from larger work loads and industrial innovations that the now widely accepted five-day system was adopted. Who has to say that similar innovations and realizations about productivity would not result in yet another day of labor being removed from the standard calendar.
As of now, a four-day work week is little more than an occasional treat that pairs with various holidays, but workers have expressed their desire for the treat to become an incorporated factor in the modern day industrial diet. The system is proven to be both advantageous and fast approaching, it is bound to come to fruition in the near future, so there is no reason to refute the benefits that it provides.
The four-day system is guaranteed to ride the wave of progress and prosperity to come with future generations, its convenience to the working class will make itself apparent as soon as it is accepted, because the four-day weekend is for the people.
