4 Day Workweek 3 Day Weekend
April 14, 2007 · Print This Article
On April Fools day, I made a post about working all 40 hours of your work week at once and then having the rest of the week off. In the post where we discussed working from home, I mentioned that one way to reduce your commute is to work a shorter work week.
Before I go any further, let me address all the people who are poised to send me vicious hate mail saying things like “What type of world do you live in?!” or “My boss would never let me do this!” Please recognize that this won’t work for everyone–I know that. However, it is a good thing to keep in mind through out your career because there may be a point where it would work for you.
Ok now that that is out of the way …
When I was a teenager, the school I attended was on a 4 day per week schedule. The state requirements for school specified a certain number of hours each year and the school administrators found that by having longer days they could meet the requirements and free up Fridays. As a student it was very beneficial because I was working as a waiter at the time and could pickup a day shift on Friday which worked out very nicely. The extra hour or two that we spent each of the four days was well worth having a big block of time off (Friday).
These type of arrangements aren’t as odd as you might think in the current work force–particularly in healthcare–especially with night shifts. It is common for ER doctors and nurses to work three 12 hour shifts in a row and then have the rest of the week off. Some even work a series of shifts totaling 80 hours in a week and then take the next
week off.
Back in 1994 the World Bank started a program where they would let people work longer days in exchange for the 10th day off as part of awork family balance program. While there were challenges the total productivity remained the same.
My point is that not everyone is working 8 hour days 5 days per week. It depends on your job, but you might be able to ask about going to a 4 day work week. For some people it might even be more productive. Imagine that you have 2 extra hours Monday through
Thursday before anyone else came into the office to get stuff done. For a lot of people these extra 8 hours would be much more productive when put before the normal work day on Monday through Thursday than they are all on Friday like normal because you would have a big block of uninterrupted time before the rest of the world got started.
Here are some tips for if this is something that interests you:
- Try to shoot for coming in early instead of staying late. It is going to be easier to convince your boss that you’ll get more done by coming in a 7:30 am and getting a head start on everything than staying a few hours late.
- Try to arrange your schedule to avoid traffic. If you normally take an hour to drive to work, you may find that it only takes 30 minutes when you come in earlier.
- Concentrate on selling the business advantages to your boss. It doesn’t matter if it is convenient to you. You need to show that it is beneficial to the company business. (A lot of the tips from asking your boss to work from home still apply.)
- Consider consulting. If your current employer isn’t interested in this type of setup and you have skills that are in demand, you might consider becoming a consultant where you could setup this type of schedule for yourself. We will look at this in more detail later on.
Obviously a 4 day week won’t work for everyone, but it is something to keep in mind as you work on achieving work/life balance. Your work productivity is important, but so is the time you spend with your family or pursuing your non-work activities.
I think that four, ten hour work days in a week are ideal. I received a job offer from a place that works six, eight hour days with three days off rotational. Some of the police stations around here work twelve hour shifts, three on three off. But over all I think the firefighter have great shifts. 24 shifts, one day on, one day off, one day on, three days off. There are many variations of this type of rotation.
A few years back I had a job at a pubishing company at which I worked four days a week and was paid for five. The agreement with my supervisor was that I would be as productive as other people in my group working five days a week with the same job description; as it turned out, I was actually more productive. Sadly, our group was transitioned to another part of the company during a re-org and the new division did not allow flexible work schedules. I was back to five days a week, a schedule that eventually led me to leave the company. The irony was that in the five-day schedule, people spent a least an hour or two a day on gossip, long coffee breaks, and, of course, lots of phone calls and emails dealing with personal business (legal issues, elderly parent issues, house repair, etc.) that could have been handled on their own time — if they’d had the fifth day off.
@Karen — Thanks for your comment. Just out of curiosity, was your employer offering 4 day work weeks to everyone or were you the only one doing that?
@Corey - I’m not sure I could handle a 24 hour shift. I’m guessing that firefighters get to sleep some during that time. Of course fighting fires would probably keep me awake for a 24 hour period too.
I once worked for a collection agency where everyone worked 4 - 10 hour days per week. The office was closed on Friday. It allowed the collectors to catch people at home before or after work.
I liked the schedule but not the job.