Trial finds most South Africans won't take Fridays off for 4-day work week

Hanno Labuschagne

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Trial finds most South Africans won't take Fridays off for 4-day work week

South Africa’s first four-day work week trial shows some differences from other countries that have tried the switch — less than one in four employees took Fridays off.

Among the 28 companies that started the six-month study in March, most were more flexible than global peers in allowing their workers to choose the day or times that best suited their needs, according to the research by 4 Day Week Global.

[Bloomberg]
 
Not quite related, but a close friend of mine that's teaching in Australia tells me that they're moving to a 4 day school week from next year.
Something about how teachers are stressed out and hardly anyone wants to become a teacher these days.
 
I say 4-day work weeks are fine on one condition. Every single person in the company from CEO, through to managers, general workers and even cleaners must ALL work for minimum wage only based on the 4 days. Nothing more. No further increases or bonuses. Minimum wage for everyone as this move will also affect the company itself.
 
Not quite related, but a close friend of mine that's teaching in Australia tells me that they're moving to a 4 day school week from next year.
Something about how teachers are stressed out and hardly anyone wants to become a teacher these days.
Didn't know Australia had schools.
 
No. Just fcking no. 5 day work week has worked for ages. We are a 3rd world shthole. Less work is NOT what we need.
It's not less work, it's more that you condense the work to 4 days, since pretty much everyone is not productive 40 hours a week.
I say 4-day work weeks are fine on one condition. Every single person in the company from CEO, through to managers, general workers and even cleaners must ALL work for minimum wage only based on the 4 days. Nothing more. No further increases or bonuses. Minimum wage for everyone as this move will also affect the company itself.
As usual, a nonsense statement.
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Software dev, but applies to basically our entire company.
Works similar to a 4 day work week, 36.5h week, Mon-Thursday 8 hours, but full flexi from 6am to 10pm, just show up for meetings if we have them (so ~4-6h a week for a senior dev (2-4h architecture discussions as project kicks off) as fixed, outside of that is you chat with the other person when it will work for you, generally we aim for 10am-12pm, 13.30-3pm, this is team specific, another was basically 8am-12pm as their "core" that I was in previously).
Then Friday is a "learning" day, with one one hour meeting among engineers where engineering update for 15 minutes max, and then 30-45 minute presentation of anything interesting someone worked on, including side projects not directly related to company.
So living the 32h work week no issue, company is making a large profit, work quality is very good as attracts and keeps good talent (as it's both good pay and good hours).
Some actually have a 32h week as well, most testers for example, they get Friday off (but they get ~10% lower salary compared to equivalent dev, but still above industry, and with tax at that level, it's like 5% difference).

For those jobs that actually need you to be there with presence, e.g. store clerk, makes sense not to give Friday off, since theirs is not knowledge work, and South Africa is skewed towards jobs that are more menial/customer facing.
 
I say 4-day work weeks are fine on one condition. Every single person in the company from CEO, through to managers, general workers and even cleaners must ALL work for minimum wage only based on the 4 days. Nothing more. No further increases or bonuses. Minimum wage for everyone as this move will also affect the company itself.
How high are you?
 
How high are you?
It's not less work, it's more that you condense the work to 4 days, since pretty much everyone is not productive 40 hours a week.

As usual, a nonsense statement.
----------
Software dev, but applies to basically our entire company.
Works similar to a 4 day work week, 36.5h week, Mon-Thursday 8 hours, but full flexi from 6am to 10pm, just show up for meetings if we have them (so ~4-6h a week for a senior dev (2-4h architecture discussions as project kicks off) as fixed, outside of that is you chat with the other person when it will work for you, generally we aim for 10am-12pm, 13.30-3pm, this is team specific, another was basically 8am-12pm as their "core" that I was in previously).
Then Friday is a "learning" day, with one one hour meeting among engineers where engineering update for 15 minutes max, and then 30-45 minute presentation of anything interesting someone worked on, including side projects not directly related to company.
So living the 32h work week no issue, company is making a large profit, work quality is very good as attracts and keeps good talent (as it's both good pay and good hours).
Some actually have a 32h week as well, most testers for example, they get Friday off (but they get ~10% lower salary compared to equivalent dev, but still above industry, and with tax at that level, it's like 5% difference).

For those jobs that actually need you to be there with presence, e.g. store clerk, makes sense not to give Friday off, since theirs is not knowledge work, and South Africa is skewed towards jobs that are more menial/customer facing.

Then no 4-day work. It has to be 5 days, sometimes even 6. Keep the status quo. Easy as that. If you are not happy, then find another job.
 
Then no 4-day work. It has to be 5 days, sometimes even 6. Keep the status quo. Easy as that. If you are not happy, then find another job.
Companies across the planet seem to be under the impression that this works. I doubt they'd be adopting it if it was drastically impacting production.

We shall see what happens in the long run. Your dismissal out of hand in the face of all these companies embracing it, is a knee-jerk reaction.
 
Companies across the planet seem to be under the impression that this works. I doubt they'd be adopting it if it was drastically impacting production.

We shall see what happens in the long run. Your dismissal out of hand in the face of all these companies embracing it, is a knee-jerk reaction.

You got that part right.
 
Companies across the planet seem to be under the impression that this works. I doubt they'd be adopting it if it was drastically impacting production.

We shall see what happens in the long run. Your dismissal out of hand in the face of all these companies embracing it, is a knee-jerk reaction.

Nah, its just Chicken Little.. he's grumpy he has to work a shitty job six days a week (at least) and doesn't get the luxury of time off while all his mates swan around on weekends.
 
Parliament members are already enjoying 2 days a week, I don't want 4 days a week, will get bored at home and argue with the wife and kid
 
Lol. Start a business and you'll quickly learn what a 10 day work week looks like.
Work Smart, Not Hard. Whatever that means, no idea, I just heard someone say this the other day
 
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