what are ways to work a 40 hour week with friday off?
A lot of things accept changed since the v-day workweek began in the 1930s, and what's now considered the normal workweek doesn't back up many workers, says U.1000.-based researcher Will Stronge. Olivia Fields for NPR hide caption
toggle explanation
Olivia Fields for NPR
A lot of things accept inverse since the v-day workweek began in the 1930s, and what's at present considered the normal workweek doesn't support many workers, says U.Chiliad.-based researcher Will Stronge.
Olivia Fields for NPR
The five-day workweek can feel every bit preordained and immovable as the number of minutes in an hour. You wake upwards, get to work and come home. Then, wash, rinse, repeat until the weekend.
But the Mon-to-Fri grind hasn't existed forever. About a century ago, working six days a calendar week was the norm. In the U.S., the v-24-hour interval workweek (along with the two-24-hour interval weekend) is something workers fought for and won in the 1930s after working years in grueling weather condition that are at present illegal.
The world has changed a lot since the v-solar day workweek became enshrined into federal police. But nosotros've kept working 40 hours from Mon through Friday even though that schedule no longer supports many workers.
"The normal working week doesn't work in many means," says U.Thou.-based researcher Will Stronge, who co-wrote the volume Overtime: Why Nosotros Demand a Shorter Working Week with Kyle Lewis. "Information technology'southward only hidden by the fact that we're forced to do information technology."
Overtime: Why Nosotros Demand A Shorter Working Week, by Will Stronge and Kyle Lewis Verso hide caption
toggle explanation
Verso
Stronge says beingness at work for 8 hours of the day doesn't mean yous're operating at peak productivity for those eight sequent hours. Only that's what the five-twenty-four hours workweek suggests. Meanwhile, workers in all kinds of industries are suffering from burnout and blurred lines between their professional person and personal lives.
So, how did we get here, and where can nosotros become? Life Kit spoke with Stronge about when the 5-24-hour interval workweek became normal, what has changed since then and what a shorter workweek offers workers and organizations. Excerpts from the conversation, edited for length and clarity, are below.
Interview highlights
How we got to the five-day workweek
Coming out of World War I and Earth War II, [workers] basically wanted a better deal. You lot had President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the U.S. who said: Await, we want a welfare system. Nosotros desire better support for our society. Frances Perkins, Roosevelt's secretary of labor, was very much informed by [workers] making these demands on [working hours and conditions]. And so y'all get the Fair [Labor Standards] Act in 1938 baking in the 40-hr working week into legislation to set new standards for what the working week is.
How work has changed since the five-day workweek became normal
In the U.S., we've gone from big manufacturing economies to more than service-based economies. The U.S. nevertheless has a lot of manufacturing, of course. Only now, there's a lot more desk-bound-based work, especially since the IT revolution of the '80s and '90s.
I call up what's happened since is that our working civilisation has changed to be one where it's much more near going above and beyond — working beyond your hours either for better career prospects or simply because it is demanded of you by your boss.
At present, during the pandemic, you're in your living room with your laptop. So it's difficult to switch off this pitter-patter which has infiltrated our working lives. I recollect it's safe to say it'due south to the detriment of well-nigh people that it'southward difficult to switch off.
How a shorter workweek addresses the "2d shift" women perform at work and at home
The male breadwinner model has been effectually since the start of industrialism. Women looked afterwards kids, prepared their meals and also nurtured and looked subsequently the male worker after he came dwelling exhausted from the industrial grind. Throughout the 20th century, when women entered the workplace, women got incomes of their own and lived lives outside of the domestic authorities. Just they too got the "2nd shift." You piece of work your chore, you lot go habitation, you exercise the 2nd shift of looking after the family and preparing the meal.
So, if y'all're talking about reducing working hours in general, a iv-solar day workweek volition first and foremost do good those who piece of work the longest hours in full. This is peculiarly relevant to women who both have their paid employment and their unpaid piece of work at home. Work is a feminist effect as much as anything else.
How the five-day workweek hurts the environment
Studies carried out around the world link working hours to people's carbon emissions or carbon footprints. That'south not only considering of the kind of work people do in product (manufacturing and construction existence very carbon intensive). It's not but that. Information technology'southward also considering of things like commuting. If people drive to work, that's a huge carbon burden. If you lot're taking ready-made meals and bottled water, these kinds of quick, like shooting fish in a barrel foods that come with a work-centered lifestyle, they have loftier carbon footprints as well. If we're going to fight climatic change, a decent way of doing that while also improving people's working lives is reducing the work of the working week.
What a shorter workweek offers workers and organizations
For many organizations, what yous lose in labor time you gain in greater productivity on the chore. For a lot of desk-based fields — creative organizations, administrative organizations and modest manufacturers as well — there'south a recognition that in an viii-60 minutes twenty-four hour period, there is some slack. We tin can't concentrate all the time, particularly if you're overworked and burned out. So reducing the working calendar week has reaped dividends in terms of productivity and worker well-being, which means workers come to work refreshed. They come to work liking their job a bit more and wanting to go the work done so that they tin have a nice weekend.
The biggest challenges to shortening the workweek
The main obstacle for implementing a shorter workweek is changing the work culture. Y'all might have people who want to work above and beyond. They might want to prove that they're working hard by putting in actress hours. But that's detrimental because a workplace with a decent working culture would be one where the quality of work is proficient, where everyone's playing their function and collaborating within the team. Information technology's not nigh individually proving that you're a harder worker than others. Then, laying downwardly firm guidelines and footing rules nearly what working hours are and what'due south expected of staff — that's what needs to be in place to avert overwork culture.
Why we should care about a shorter workweek
I retrieve we should all exist interested in the future of work. We're all workers of ane kind or another, whether information technology's manufacturing or service sector or radio. The future is something that we can, and should, shape. And I retrieve we should steer abroad from this wave of automation coming in, the jobless future, and so on. We should not requite in to the temptation to think that the time to come is just on its mode to impose stuff on us. Only we should exist interested in the hereafter of work so we can change it.
How we'd fill time on our day off
This sounds quite bland, merely a lot of people just get their life admin done so the weekends are entirely clear to practise all the fun stuff they want to practise. I've met people who say they used to mash beer and they want to get back into that. And a lot of people merely desire to spend more time with their family and pick their kids upward from school and so on, which I think is quite heartwarming.
The audio portion of this episode was produced by Clare Marie Schneider, with engineering support from Josh Newell.
Nosotros'd dearest to hear from yous. If you have a good life hack, exit usa a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or e-mail us at LifeKit@npr.org. Your tip could appear in an upcoming episode.
If you lot dearest Life Kit and desire more, subscribe to our newsletter .
Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/10/04/1043145165/four-day-work-week
Post a Comment for "what are ways to work a 40 hour week with friday off?"