A Longer Weekend – Boon or Bane

While it is normally believed that a longer work period increases productivity it is actually contradictory to research that has been conducted through various psychological experiments. Living dreadfully from Sunday to the coming Saturday has become normal for most of the working population. Hobbies, social events, chores, workouts, and date nights are crammed & packed in a two-day weekend which results in us feeling even more exhausted in the end. So the question arises is it possible to have a longer weekend and subsequently have a shorter work week? What if we could enjoy a three-day weekend? The removal of a work day and the addition of a weekend day is not a utopian concept anymore. It is becoming increasingly in many nations

The Nordic nations & Japan have already started experimenting with a shorter work week — four days to be exact. In Spain, big firms are agreeing to a work week comprising of 32 hours with no loss of pay. As of now Iceland has implemented the world’s biggest trial of a shorter working week from 2015 to 2019 and observed that a majority of working professionals were much happier and healthier than before. Employers who have experimented say it boosts productivity and the physical and mental well-being of the employees. In Japan where big companies take particular notice of having an efficient workforce, there is a deliberate effort to try and break the norm of having a toxic and workaholic culture.

But sadly reduction in days is not the answer as it would lead to cramming 5 days’ worth of work into a 4-day period which might be slightly offset from the long weekend but the continuous stress and fatigue will add up to be much more detrimental in the long run. Just like any diets, nutrition plans, workouts, and clothes are customized for us, working models need to be tailored for us. A recent research survey conducted by LinkedIn in India found that 7 out of 10 Indian women are either leaving their jobs or considering quitting their jobs due to a lack of flexible work timings for them to work in.

So it seems that simply removing a day from our work week will not help us work more efficiently or become more productive. Similarly adding an extra weekend day will not compensate for the extra workload that we will receive. What we finally need are flexible work hours because each person’s needs are different from others and thus need to be treated differently.