The opportunities of the short week

Six-month probation, 4 working days, same salary. One can hardly believe that we would all put our signature on it. While it still seems a fairly distant prospect in Italy, the introduction of the short work week is being seriously discussed in some countries. The United Kingdom, for example, decided to test it as part of an academic study conducted by the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. So far six companies have joined the pilot project that will begin in June, although researchers hope to attract a much larger sample of companies. Those involved so far are mostly software companies, or medical organizations with numbers of employees ranging from 20 to 100(HuffPost).

Future Frontier After all, the pandemic emergency has changed the way we work, and smart working has become mainstream, making it clear that we need to rethink the relationship between work and leisure. In this context, the short work week (and long weekend) may prove to be the new frontier of the future of work(Financial Times). Seeing it as an opportunity are both workers and companies interested in the potential benefits: from increased productivity to staff retention, as well as reduced costs for industries that usually experience high turnover of departing employees. There are companies that have even experienced a 30 percent increase in job applications after switching to the four-day work week(Insider).

• The story of the company that “cured” employees of burn out with the shortened week(Cnbc).
• The short week is not perfect but workers prefer it(Wired).

Global experiment The debate on the issue has become global. So much so that a few weeks ago Panasonic also decided to launch the experiment(Courier). The Japanese giant, Bloomberg writes, has chosen to introduce the short week as an option available to its workers. “We need to support the welfare of our employees,” explained CEO Kusumi Yuki. In Belgium, on the other hand, civil service workers will no longer have to respond to emails and messages outside permitted hours, and the government is reportedly seriously considering introducing the shortened week(SkyTG24). In Sweden, one of the countries that first used it, the shortened week does not seem to have much of a chance, since most workers are already employed part-time, while in Iceland it has been called an “overwhelming success”(Bbc). In Italy, meanwhile, it remains an isolated case, and few companies, such as the international Carter&Benson and Awin Italia, have adopted the shortened week.

• Work less, work without croissants(Linkiesta).