Remember the headlines last year about the company in NZ operating on a 4-day week with record productivity? It seems to have really got people talking.
HR folks, bosses and line managers alike have had their imaginations captured – and conversations are bubbling away in cities and boardrooms across Australia.
Could there be something sweet in the air, besides the smell of summer coming? Are we finally on the brink of a bold challenge to the traditional 40-hour working week?
Many of us fantasise about having an extra ‘spare’ day in the week (surely that’s not just me, right?). How much better off would we be as individuals, families and a society if the obligatory Monday-Friday 9-5 (if only) rulebook was torn-up and rewritten?
But lovely though it sounds, it’s not a clear-cut argument. It’s only early days in an experiment that has a long way to play out, and it’s almost certainly going to be a case of ‘horses for courses’.
So, for this week’s Wellbeing Insights, we wanted to get some facts on the table to help inform the debate on WHY working fewer contracted hours might be a good idea and HOW life might look and feel if we did do things a bit differently. We’re also going to share with you what (little) research there is on WHO and WHAT has been tried and tested to date.
