Did you know :
- That the World used to work 6 days a week and the US only adopted the 5-day week in 1932 to counter the unemployment caused by the Great Depression?
- And that Singapore moved to a 5-day week for the Civil Service only in 2004? Before that, government employees had to work half-days on Saturdays.
So, the concept of reduced workhours isn’t foreign to us and in today’s context, shouldn’t be a sacred cow that can never be slayed. Already, 4 out of 5 employees want a 4-day week, and I’m sure even more would appreciate a 3-day one.
Imagine how much our national current Happiness Index Ranking of 27th Place would shoot up simply by encouraging companies to do that?
But would a 3-day Week even be possible?
I recognise that there are inherent challenges in implementing a 3-day week, particularly because not every job avails itself to this format.
For instance, customer-service staff, surgeons and other service providers who need to be physically present to have work done would find it difficult to be absent 2 days a week and yet be effective at what they do.
Even today, pharmacists who go on their alloted hour-long lunch breaks sometime return to their counter only to receive the stink-eye from customers who had to wait 30 minutes for their prescriptions. Imagine being gone for 2 days!
However, the biggest hurdle to this system is ‘inequity’. How do you give staff who can do a 3-day week time off and not those who can’t? There would be riots on the streets! (Ok, maybe not.)
But let’s imagine a time when a 3-day Week could work. And I believe it could happen if…
1. If we started measuring our work by Outcomes rather than Hours.
Already, many of us have gotten used to working from home and now, even being asked to return to the office makes us feel as if we are being short-changed.
Many companies have also become used to assessing the productivity of their employees by results, rather than time clocked at a desk.
So if this trend of measuring Outcomes versus Hours continues, what’s stopping companies from implementing a 3-day week where their staff still achieve the desired results if they do it in super-quick time and spend the rest of their week on other projects or on themselves?
I believe that such a paradigm shift can happen and the first companies to embrace this will enjoy a more motivated and productive workforce.
2. If we change our mindsets and definitions surrounding the 3-day Week.
Maybe we need to remove the traditional thinking of a 3-day week as ‘turning up on 3 fixed days’, and replace it with a dynamic and flexible schedule where staff are entitled to 4 half-day windows of ”Me-Time Pockets” (MTP) interspersed throughout the week.
These half-day MTPs would be blocked-out times where they are not required to attend meetings if they don’t want to.
Staff can spend this time on their own work, strategic thinking, or just running their personal errands.
In effect, what’s left behind are 6 half-day pockets of ‘consultation hours’ where staff can officially collaborate with each other.
Of course, depending on the demands of the job, employees can decide to open up fewer MTPs to accomodate more working hours to finish up their work. After all, deliverables have to be met.
Under such as system, chances are, staff might still be working 5 days a week, except that they are given better control of their own hours.
Hence this is not so much a case for cutting work-days, but rather, giving employees back some degree of control of their time.
3. If Employers start seeing this as a Strategic Advantage in Talent Attraction
Given the ‘Great Resignation’ that is happening around us, many companies have tried to raise salaries to stem the outflow of talent but to no avail. There is something more precious than money and job titles now.
It’s being ‘Time-Rich’.
Now, imagine a company that has implemented this radical system.
When competitors try to poach their talent, the first question their staff would ask is, “Do you guys have a 3 day work-week? No? Sorry, not interested.”
The companies that successfully figure out how to roll out a 3-day week first will have a Talent Attraction Advantage that’s hard to replicate. I can imagine top talents flocking to join them.
Companies have to see the strategic value of trusting their staff with their own time and start thinking out of the box to come up with unconventional ways to beat their competition in this War For Talent.
For us at Career Agility International, we already practice some radical workplace ideas.
Our Wednesday mornings are MTP, untouched by meetings. We’re considering extending them to include Friday afternoons.
We believe that if you take care of your team-mates, they will take care of the business.
What do you think? Are you ready for a 3-day work-week?