PRODUCTIVITY: Best of both worlds?

A new school of thought suggests that workers can increase their productivity by working four days a week. But is it truly feasible?

- ANDREW BARNES

The 4 Day Week, a new model of work fit for the digitally-driven 21st century, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and the age of climate disaster, is my answer to the productivity problem that plagues many Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, both developed and developing. Now, I accept there may be macroeconomic, infrastructural, political, industrial, and other legacy issues that affect the overall productivity of a given nation.

For example, in New Zealand, where I live, policymakers, government ministers, and business leaders continue to grapple with the decades-old problem of concentration risk in an economy that is heavily skewed towards primary industry and tourism, two sectors which cannot be endlessly scaled up without concomitant effects on the natural environment, and which are highly vulnerable in the face of unpredictable climate events, a volatile dollar, and global issues such as COVID-19.

With these factors in mind—and while mulling over data about UK and Canadian office workers which found that on average, they were productive for only 1.5 to 2 hours in a standard eight-hour day—I conceived the 4 Day Week, a productivity-focused, reduced-hour model of work that embraces time as the scarce resource, posing the challenge to an existing workforce in an organisation to deliver their current productivity in four standard days rather than five.

Staff are not threatened with layoffs but presented with the opportunity to raise productivity and reduce operating costs by finding and addressing any barriers to productivity in their own behaviour. They are encouraged to point out anything that might unduly soak up their precious time and prevent them from achieving their productivity targets and enjoying the 4 Day Week.