Professor Howard Weiss, recently retired from Temple U., shares his insights with our readers monthly.
Wendy Smith Born, who co-owns and runs the retail operations at Metropolitan Bakery in Philadelphia, has been using a 4-day work model for well over a year. Her employees say it’s better for their mental health and their productivity.
Some companies use a 10-hour 4-day workweek in order to maintain a 40-hour week. Others use an 8-hour 4-day workweek. A concern is that employees would accomplish less work in 32 hours rather than in 40 hours. However, several companies, like Metropolitan Bakery, claim that productivity is up and that hours worked should not be a substitute for productivity.
It is not only small businesses that are implementing the shorter workweek. At Panasonic and Microsoft in Japan, workers have the option to scale back to 4 days. Microsoft claims a 40% increase in productivity. Shake Shack, Canon (UK) and Unilever New Zealand are currently experimenting with 32-hour workweeks without pay cuts. Toshiba and the city of Morgantown, WV are trying a 4-day 40-hour workweek. KPMG implements a seasonal workweek where workers get Fridays off in the summer.
In some cases, a country dictates the workweek. Iceland is running a 36 hour trial. The U.K., Spain, Scotland, Spain and Ireland have a 32 hour trial. The U.A.E. has instituted a permanent 4.5 day work week for federal employees. Iceland has implemented a 36 hour week without a reduction in pay while Belgium has implemented a permanent 38 hour workweek. Japan recommends a 4-day workweek.
While many of us have been raised with a 40-hour workweek, this was not always the case. In 1776, the workweek was typically six 12-hour days (or seven 12-hour days for farmers, with workdays being longer in the summer than in the winter). In the mid-1850s, labor unions emerged arguing for shorter workdays. In the 1920s, Ford adopted a 5-day workweek. During the depression Kellogg’s, Standard Oil, GM and Sears reduced the workweek to 30 hours. This allowed more people to be employed (with lower take-home pay).
Figure 5.2 in your Heizer/Render/Munson textbook (shown here) displays product life cycle but processes also have a life cycle, and clearly, the 4 day workweek is in the growth stage at this point.
Classroom discussion questions:
1. To some extent, students can control their class week by selecting MWF classes or TTh classes. What are the advantages and disadvantages of MWF vs TTh?
2. What are some other industry workweeks and workdays aside from those mentioned above?