A model makes school
Are we ready for the four-day week?
By Diana Dittmer
2/16/2022, 6:48 p.m
The pandemic favors ever more flexible ways of working. The question is no longer just where we work – in the home office or in the office. The question of how many days it should be for what salary has also come into focus. Iceland, Spain and Belgium are testing different models.
The model of working four days a week and having three days off seems to be gaining momentum in the pandemic. The employees in Belgium are now among those who no longer only have to dream about it. With the labor market reform that has been passed, employees will in future have the right to a shorter working week. The following applies: full wage compensation, but also full hours.
The aim of the reform is a more dynamic and productive economy. The employment rate in Belgium is currently at a comparatively low 71 percent. In Germany, the rate was 75.5 percent. Belgium is now aiming for 80 percent by 2030. “If you compare our country with others, you realize that we are far less dynamic,” said Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander de Croo. “After two difficult years, the labor market has developed further. With this agreement, we are setting the standards for a good economy.”
The pandemic is accelerating change in the world of work. Not only hybrid work has become socially acceptable. Working from home no longer means slouching. In fact, the first small studies show that productivity can even be significantly increased as a result. It seems that the trend towards the four-day week is also gaining ground.
So far, it has mainly been Scandinavian countries that have experimented with it. For the first time, Belgium is a country from the center of Europe that has created facts with a corresponding labor market law. Iceland had already rated the model positively after two test runs from 2015 to 2021: the productivity and performance of the employees was constant, and there was not an excessive amount of overtime. And the changeover wasn’t as complex as expected. There was also a pleasant side effect for employers: employees took less sick leave.
Iceland and Spain do it differently
Spain also took the first step last autumn. Around 6000 employees in 2000 mostly medium-sized companies started a model project over a year. As in Belgium, the aim is to create full-time jobs and, above all, to enable young Spaniards who are stuck in precarious jobs to take the leap.
In contrast to the employees in Belgium, the Spaniards should not only work fewer working days, but also fewer hours overall. This also applies in Iceland. Here too – unlike in Belgium – less commitment is expected from the employees. For a long time, the small country had a comparatively high average weekly working time of 39.2 hours. This should be reduced by the four-day week.
Both the Icelandic and Spanish governments consider the reduced workload to be more beneficial for both the labor market and the economy. The incentive for companies to create new jobs is greater. The decision in Spain was made easier by the fact that, for the duration of the pilot project, the wage compensation for the employees will be covered by state co-payments.
Even large corporations have had good experiences with the four-day week – “for free”. Microsoft, for example, presented positive results in Japan in 2019. The employees at the company’s headquarters in Tokyo got every Friday off for a month – as a kind of “special paid vacation”. The increase in employee productivity, which is said to have improved by a total of around 40 percent, was downright astounding. In Japan, the issue attracted a lot of attention because the country is known for its harsh working conditions and long hours of overtime.
Four days a week is no longer enough
Not only many employees, but also labor market experts consider the five-day week to be outdated after almost 70 years in the rapidly changing world of work. After the German trade union federation in Germany called for a 40-hour week in 1955 and launched the “Saturdays belong to me” campaign a year later, the transition from a six-day to a five-day week began in Germany in 1956. Since then a lot has happened. Industrialized countries have coped well with the move from the six-day week to the five-day week. So why shouldn’t it continue like this?
Proponents of shorter working hours not only argue with higher employee satisfaction through health and social advantages that are beneficial for people and for the job. They also refer to the intensification of work in recent years due to downsizing, digitization and artificial intelligence. Everyday life has become faster and work more effective. The employees could now benefit from it.
The pandemic provides another argument: the experts are predicting a historic labor exodus that appears to be accelerating rapidly. According to the Federal Employment Agency, there is currently a shortage of around 1.2 million workers in Germany, two thirds of whom are skilled workers. There is an acute shortage of nursing staff, and vacancies in the IT industry have long been a critical issue.
In addition, there is also a lack of workers for simple services. In the US alone, 11 million people left the labor market during the pandemic. The phenomenon is called “The Big Quit”. Brexit-weakened Great Britain is also groaning under the lack of workers. The competition for employees is getting tougher.
Experts predict that dealing with people in companies will become critical to success in the future. Unsurprisingly, the banking sector now offers high bonuses and perks for investment bankers. Businesses need to be more inventive. It is true that different sectors cannot be lumped together, but those that offer full wage compensation with fewer working hours will probably fare better.