Four Day Work Week Gains Popularity
At a time when work hours seem to be getting longer and pay is definitely getting smaller, there’s been a social experiment in Utah that might have some interesting implications for the economy and the environment. One year ago, 17,000 state workers in Utah agreed to try a four-day workweek, where they still put in 40 hours, but over the course of only four days. They stay later and start earlier, with the fifth day off…giving them a three-day weekend.
What the experiment has shown is that the savings in energy for the offices normally used to house five-days workers is 13% and savings to the employees on gas alone has been estimated at around $6 million. The greenhouse emissions generated by the state has been lessened by 12,000 metric tons a year. The workers are very receptive to the idea of having a three-day weekend, even with the longer workdays. As a result of all of this, it’s not surprising that fully 82% of them want to keep this system in place.
Says professor Lori Wadsworth of Brigham Young University, “It’s beneficial for the environment and beneficial for workers.” Most people love the set-up; those who don’t were mostly parents with young children who had a hard time finding extended daycare.
Other cities from around the world want to know the details of Utah’s experiment, and may wish to try it for themselves. Private industry is already interested and active in the idea: For example GM has started a workweek of four ten-hour days at a few of its plants.
The pluses of a so-called 4-10 schedule are obvious: lower costs to workers for gas to commute and lower utility bills for companies to keep an office up and running. But there are added benefits as well, even for non-state employees. By offering extended hours, people who would have not been able to avail themselves of in-person office hours because they themselves were at work, can now patronize those businesses when it's convenient for them. People who are off on that fifth day can get their own business done, on a day when they’d normally be working and unable to access normal “business hours.” Another benefit is for those people who work ten hour days on a five day work week. Salaried employees who were previously unpaid for that extra time now find that it's easier to get out of the office when everyone else does.
Besides the benefits to the environment and gas savings for commuters with a four-day workweek, there’s the potential for a five-day week experiment, with the fifth day having certain workers telecommute from their homes. If you’re in an industry where there’s customer service, this can mean no interruption of assistance even when there’s no one in the physical office, through use of phone, fax and emails.
Further, Utah saw fewer sick days taken and employees reported exercising on their days off. Jeff Herring, the executive director for Utah, said, “This can really make a difference for work-life balance.”
