A 4-Day Working Week?
Hi
Welcome to November’s newsletter. I hope you have had a great month. I confess I have been excited by the World Cup, albeit being a rather controversial tournament this year. The Prism Digital team and I have been getting involved so I couldn’t resist sharing a few photos.
In more sombre news we have seen the tech giants making mass global layoffs over the last month or so. So I would like to remind you that Prism’s client base (and Prism itself) is still very much hiring!
This month I wanted to share some thoughts about a subject that I have been hearing about; the advent of the four-day working week. A hundred UK companies have signed up for a permanent four-day workweek covering around 2,600 staff. We have seen huge shifts in how people work since the pandemic with forms of remote working becoming far more normalised than before (more than we could have previously imagined). It shows that our concept of how work should be done can be entirely transformed and perhaps a four-day workweek is the next revolutionary idea. It is an interesting concept, and I can certainly see both sides of the argument for and against it. Many companies who have trialled the policy have reported increases in productivity, however, I suppose if you are going to reduce your staff’s total hours by 20%, this increase in productivity will have to be at least 20% to match previous levels of output. There are other reported benefits too, with employee welfare seemingly boosted at the companies who have tested it. Overall, it appears that the businesses that have committed to the new working policy (only a very small percentage of UK businesses so far) have reported that it has been a net positive.
However, we must remember that all businesses are different, and what works in one industry, may not work in another. Having spent most of my professional life in a highly competitive sales environment where every day counts, it is personally difficult to envision only working 4 days a week. Either way, from a staffing perspective, just like remote working, I believe this could be the new frontier on which some companies attempt to gain an advantage in the battle for talent. There’s no denying that employees will find this type of work dynamic highly attractive. Food for thought!
As always, if you want to talk to me about the market, DevOps trends, etc. do not hesitate to get in touch, it would be great to hear from you. Book a call with me here.
Thanks, Alex (DevOps) Dover
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