Osman Şenkul
For much of human history, work was largely comprised of hunting and gathering, agriculture, and manual labour (such as shoemaking, blacksmithing, and similar trades), with working hours dependent on demand, seasons, weather conditions, and daylight hours.
The Industrial Revolution, which brought about large-scale social and economic changes with the introduction of newly invented machines such as the internal combustion engine and the spinning machine, which greatly increased productivity, began in the 18th century.
These changes accelerated the factory system and urbanisation, displaced artisans and radically changed the way workers worked. Many left their homes and farms to work in factories where working hours were determined by employers rather than nature. The rise of mass production and the assembly line further intensified these changes in workplace conditions, often with adverse consequences for workers.
As we have discussed in previous articles, during this period, thousands of workshop workers who had lost their jobs due to the rise of mechanisation in England rebelled; the rebels were particularly involved in machine-breaking actions that shook the wool and cotton industries. This major movement was known as the ‘Luddite rebellions’.
The Luddites were inspired by the rebellion of ‘Ned Ludd,’ a legendary figure believed to have lived in Sherwood Forest and led the movement, who became famous for smashing the machines that had taken his job. Groups following this legendary figure, like this ‘rebel,’ destroyed machines that had taken their jobs or caused their wages to be cut nearly in half.
The exploitation of workers that followed the Industrial Revolution was felt throughout the industrialised world. Workers, including women and children, some of whom were very young, were known to be subjected to poor treatment. Estimates vary, but most experts agree that in the 19th century, workers in the United Kingdom were forced to work 12 to 16 hours a day, six days a week, totalling 72 to 96 hours per week. Estimates for the United States were slightly lower in 1830, totalling approximately 69 hours per week.
Workers, reformers and trade unions lobbied throughout the 1800s against child labour and for shorter working hours (primarily an eight-hour working day) and safer working conditions, with many workers protesting through strikes. On 19 May 1869, Ulysses S. Grant issued ‘Proclamation No. 182 — Eight-Hour Workday for Employees of the United States Government,’ which limited ‘workers, craftsmen, and mechanics’ to an eight-hour workday and encouraged the private sector to do the same. However, working on Saturdays remained a common practice, meaning workers had only one day off per week, on Sundays.
However, this situation soon changed. In 1908, a factory in New England became the first American factory to close on Saturdays so that Jewish workers could observe the Sabbath, thus implementing a five-day work week.
In 1926, Henry Ford, having previously implemented the eight-hour working day, introduced the five-day working week at Ford Motor Company factories and popularised the concept of a two-day “weekend”.
This shorter working week was legalised with the passage of the Fair Labour Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938. This law initially set the working week at 44 hours, but reduced it to 42 hours in 1939 and to the current standard of 40 hours in 1940. Shorter working weeks were not only an important way to keep more workers employed during the Great Depression, but employers also saw them as a way to reduce absenteeism and increase productivity. For example, Henry Ford thought that shorter eight-hour shifts were perfect for keeping his factories running 24 hours a day. The FLSA officially made the two-day weekend a reality for American workers.
The five-day (face-to-face, on-site) 40-hour work week remained the standard until the COVID-19 pandemic (which began in March 2020), when flexible working hours and working from home became widespread. During and after the pandemic, many employees left their jobs or refused to return to the office after the requirement to work from home was lifted, leading observers to label this period the ‘Great Resignation.’
Employees left their jobs for many reasons, including fears and concerns about COVID safety measures, a desire for better pay and a better work-life balance, and a reassessment of personal priorities, particularly in light of the increasing prevalence of working from home. The popularity of remote working encouraged calls for a four-day working week after the pandemic.
In the United States, senators and representatives have repeatedly introduced bills to reduce the working week to 32 hours since it was first proposed by Representative John Conyers in 1985. More recently, Representative Mark Takano and Senator Bernie Sanders jointly introduced the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act. The renowned economist John Maynard Keynes believed that, thanks to the productivity gains provided by advancing technology, a 15-hour working week would be possible by 2030.
A four-day working week offers employees a better work-life balance, which translates into better mental health and a happier workforce. In the UK, in a six-month pilot programme involving approximately 2,900 employees in 2022, 62% of participants stated that balancing work and social life had become easier, 60% said balancing work and care responsibilities had become easier, and 54% said balancing work and household chores had become easier. Similarly, employees reported lower levels of anxiety, fatigue, and sleep issues and indicated that their physical and mental health had improved. As a result, there was a 65% reduction in sick days and personal leave days. Simply put, healthy and happy employees are the best employees, and a four-day working week can create just such a workforce. It also increases employee retention rates, which is a boon for employers.
A four-day working week means that employees and companies can focus on core tasks rather than controversial ones. British maritime historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson observed in The Economist in 1955 that ‘it is a common observation that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.’ In other words, more working time is not the key to higher productivity, because the same task can fill an hour or a week. The average white-collar worker spends 21.5 hours a week in meetings, and 47 per cent of employees consider meetings to be the biggest time waster in the office. Furthermore, the average employee is interrupted 56 times a day during work.
A four-day working week could minimise this waste. A four-day working week is financially advantageous for companies. As Caroline Castrillon, a senior writer at Forbes who writes about career change and entrepreneurship, explains, companies with shorter working weeks immediately eliminate a portion of variable overhead costs such as electricity and energy consumption. For example, in 2019, Microsoft Japan’s trial saw electricity costs fall by 23 per cent.
In addition, employees use fewer office supplies and equipment, and the depreciation of equipment such as printers and photocopiers is slower. Fewer working days also mean less frequent cleaning services. And if you factor in daily perks that many companies offer their employees, such as snacks or free lunches, the cost savings increase even further. Furthermore, employees tend to prefer working for and staying with a company that offers a four-day working week, which reduces employee turnover and employer costs.
At present, one challenge is that the four-day workweek debate does not always align with narratives about doubling the workload. Some leaders are tired of work-life balance discussions, and large employers in particular are calling their employees back to the office. Yet trials conducted by Schor and other researchers from the UK to New Zealand have shown that spending less time at work can make employees happier and less burnt out without compromising productivity.
Many CEOs are currently focused on the benefits of Recovery Time Objective (RTO)¹ and the necessity of rushing. Vishal Reddy, Managing Director of WorkFour, said that part of this serious talk is a way for big bosses to tell their boards and investors that their employees will be working harder than ever. WorkFour is a non-profit organisation advocating for a standard four-day, 32-hour work week. Vishal Reddy said, ‘Part of it, I think, is a performance show,’ referring to CEOs’ directives.
Reddy said another reason there is less talk about the four-day work week is that the idea is no longer as novel as it was in 2020 and 2021. In those years, some employers implemented the concept to attract and retain employees. To move the idea forward, it will likely require waiting for the market to shift and for employees to regain leverage. Reddy said he sees the bills in New York and Maine that include four-day work week pilot programmes as a sign that supporters have not given up on the concept. There are still many examples of companies adopting shorter working hours. Reddy said that in almost all cases, once employers adopted these working hours, they did not revert.
WorkFour, a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting a four-day working week in the US, was established in 2019 in partnership with the 4 Day Week Global Foundation. In its first campaign, supported by researchers at Boston College and Cambridge University, employers were sought for the first pilot programme organised in the United States. The pilot programme contributed to an increase in the number of studies showing that a 4-day working week is a policy that benefits employers, employees and society as a whole.
Pavel Shynkarenko, founder and CEO of the contractor management platform Mellow, emphasises that the challenges of adopting a shorter working week are not limited to practical issues such as how to meet customer demands, like answering their phones on Fridays. Shynkarenko says that for employers to be able to pay their employees the same wage while making them work one day less, the economy really needs to pick up speed, meaning it needs to grow at high single-digit or even double-digit rates.
Shynkarenko said that if technology can sufficiently increase worker productivity, a shorter workweek could be feasible. Working only four days could also help prevent unemployment, which is becoming more widespread due to artificial intelligence, by spreading the work to more people. Shynkarenko said that a four-day working week would serve as a ‘safe harbour’ for the economy during the transition to an economy where bots take on more of the tasks currently performed by humans.
According to Schor, who suggests that thanks to artificial intelligence, even a four-day working week could become unnecessary, working weeks could potentially be reduced to just two days. ‘Still, deviating from the five-day work week will likely take years,’ said Shynkarenko, adding that until artificial intelligence can handle more demanding tasks, employers will face significant cost pressures, leaving little room for debate about shorter work weeks. Furthermore, in highly competitive sectors like technology, a shorter work week could be seen as conceding ground to competitors.
However, economist Schor does not believe employers can postpone this issue indefinitely. The reason is that although employee stress and burnout rates have improved from COVID-19 crisis levels, progress has stalled and remains above pre-pandemic levels, he said, ‘We are still at high stress levels.’
Even if economic growth occurs quickly enough to make a four-day working week feasible, other factors may still come into play. One of these is that, in some cases, employees may feel ashamed of working less, says Dale Whelehan, an assistant professor of systems psychology at Trinity College Dublin who supports shorter working weeks. Until January, he was CEO of 4 Day Week Global, a non-profit organisation advocating for reduced working hours.
Whelehan, who stated that ‘there was an internalised sense of guilt because they did not work hard enough or perform well enough,’ touched upon what could happen in organisations experimenting with shorter working weeks. However, Whelehan said that the benefits in terms of employee well-being and company performance are so great that the currently stalled four-day working week debate will ‘resurface.’
As can be understood from all this, global discussions and preparations regarding the four-day working week have been on the agenda for quite some time and are gaining an increasingly broad base. In discussions about these studies, ‘artificial intelligence’ and related digital technology developments have also come to the fore quite seriously in recent times. As we know and closely observe, the mass layoffs caused by artificial intelligence, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, are spreading quite effectively globally, and mass unemployment problems are escalating rapidly. However, many company executives and, in particular, academics focused on research in this area, emphasise that job losses due to artificial intelligence can be balanced by four-day working weeks.
Four-day working week trials gained popularity several years ago, when employees had more power in the workplace. Some time ago, a CEO, described in newspapers as ‘who wished to remain anonymous’, said that if artificial intelligence could sufficiently increase economic gains, it could help provide longer weekends. For a while, it seemed that a four-day working week might become a reality.
Juliet Schor, an economist at Boston College who studies shorter work weeks, said that ‘management wants to take back what employees gained during the pandemic.’ However, Schor and other supporters emphasised in statements to Business Insider that the idea of a permanent three-day weekend is important. In other words, businesses that are boosting their profits with AI support could balance this by supporting four-day work weeks rather than laying off employees; thus, solutions that shift from layoffs to technology-intensive and humane working conditions become much easier and gain more humane ground.
¹Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is the maximum acceptable time for restoring a network or application and regaining access to data after an unplanned outage. The degree to which a process affected by downtime impacts business continuity can influence the RTO.