While it sounds great, business reporter Jacob McSweeny discovers the jury is still out for a lot of people about whether the shorter working week is a good idea.
The four-day working week has piqued the interest of a lot of businesses in Otago, but it is yet to really take hold, according to a range of business leaders and a workplace academic.
Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin last year discussed a four-day week and a reduction of the workday to six hours so people could spend more time with their families.
It has generated conversations around the world about the idea, but in Otago and New Zealand it is largely just that for now — a conversation.
“New Zealand has struggled with providing flexibility for work generally,’’ University of Otago senior lecturer in human resource management, Paula O’Kane said.
“This is probably a personal opinion of mine, coming from the UK and Irish system where there seems to be a lot more flexible working, a lot more people working part time and shorter hours.
“New Zealand seems to me to be ... a lot more stuck in the traditional 40-hour working week and the half-eight to five.’’
She said a lot of businesses here struggled to apply different schedules than the usual nine-to-five, such as workshares, where two people share one full-time job, or the shorter working week.
In general there was a demand for more flexibility around work, Dr O’Kane said.
“It might not necessarily be a four-day week but it’s about allowing a lot more flexibility around when people work, how people work and where people work.
“The concept of the four-day week is a nice starting point and it’s a good conversation starter but I think there’s a whole bigger picture and a whole lot more to be done around how we can make work fit better with people’s lives more generally.’’
Perpetual Guardian, an estate planning company with a branch in Dunedin, introduced the four-day week for its more than 200 employees in 2018.
Its founder Andrew Barnes has travelled around the world to talk about how the shorter week has changed his business.
Mr Barnes said the four-day week was not only good for families but also for the environment and the issue of congestion.
Jason Lindsey, who founded the co-working space Petridish with his wife Kate Lindsey, did a four-day week at a previous job.
He expected it to be a lot better than how it turned out.
“It sounds awesome. Problem with mine was even though I was doing a four-day work week, I was doing 10-hour days.
“For some reason Fridays ... which were my day off, were my craziest, busy days because I felt like I had to get everything done I couldn’t get done during the week.
He said having three days off work did mean he was re-energised when he came back on the Monday.
A six-hour work day would be great, Mr Lindsey said, but controls were needed to try to ensure productivity was not compromised.
‘‘I’ve heard of places that do it and do it successfully ... they basically turn off your ability to access things like Facebook and Twitter and all that stuff.
“There’s been times in my career where I’ll take a break and I’ll look at Facebook and all of a sudden I’ll realise I’ve been looking at Facebook for an hour when I should have been doing work.
“That’s just a waste of time ... a waste of my personal time and a waste of my company’s time.’’
Zoe Hobson, the managing director of one of Dunedin’s more modern workplaces, Runaway Play, said a four-day working week was something she had considered.
“We’re not doing it currently. It’s something that would be interesting to potentially trial.
“It’s just one of those things ... it depends a lot on the culture of your business and what the nature of people’s work are and also what people’s personal work styles are.
“I think for some of our roles here, some people would find it great and other people would find it challenging to work, say, slightly longer hours, because there’s kind of a creativity tap-out point for some people in the day ... where once you get to this point the amount of work you get done is minimal.’’
What Runaway Play focused on as an employer was to be flexible to what employees needed, Ms Hobson said.
‘‘We do try to be very flexible with our workplace ... we’re very flexible with our hours.
“I myself I have two young kids so I work from home a lot of afternoons, I pick the kids up from school, work from home a lot of the afternoon.’’
Otago Chamber of Commerce chief executive, Dougal McGowan, said he knew of some Otago companies about to trial the four-day week.
“I know there are some that are talking to their staff right now for the new year about it.
“The key to that is making sure everybody understands the detail and it’s a trial period.
“I know of three companies at the moment who are trialling it.’’
Like Dr O’Kane, Mr McGowan said offering flexibility to employees was important.
“The traditional way and where we work is changing quite considerably, so the four-day working week is just one consideration companies could be looking at to help support their employees.
“There’s the ‘flexi-time’ that many people are able to do where they can work different times, with permission.
“Equally, they can work from home for different aspects of their job. What it does is it creates that space where people can make sure that they’re managing all of the conflicting parts of their lives to best effect.’’
The Otago Southland Employers Association chief executive Virginia Nicholls said she had not heard of much uptake of the four-day week in the region.
Whether or not businesses could bring in the four-day week was dependent on what the demands were.
‘‘If you’re a tourism provider, as an example, it’s quite challenging isn’t it? You might be requiring services seven days a week ... it doesn’t make it easy for you does it?
“If you’re in a health-related field, as well. I mean, you can’t just do six hours, you’re going to need more people in order to do the 24-hour requirement.
“I imagine some employers will be looking with great interest at what [Perpetual Guardian] have done in New Zealand.’’
