5 days v’s 4 days.
Bert Martinez, the CEO of a business- training firm in Huston Texas has decided to try something new. At the end of next month his entire company is going to be saying good buy to the five, 8 hours a day, work week and will instead be trying out a four, 10 hour a days, work week instead. And so long as productivity and profits remain the same, or grow, then this is the way they intend to stay.
It’s all part of Martinez plan for both him and his colleagues to ‘take back’ their personal life’s.
This has got me thinking.
Is it a good idea or a bad one?
On the one hand I’m sure there are very few of us out there that would turn down a 3 day weekend, every weekend, if we were still receiving the same salary.
We could spend more time with friends and family, do the things we want to do but can never quite find the time and maybe even have more weekends away. Sound like heaven?
On the other hand, a 10 hour day, four days a week!!!
I’m sure there are thousands of us out there that do 10 hour days when the situation calls for it, a strict deadline maybe, or a larger than average work load.
I’m happy to work late when I need to but I have never, ever, once been disappointed when 5 o’clock rolls around. Why? Because I need time to wind down when I’ve finished working, even after an 8 hour day, I enjoy my evenings because I get to be me.
By the time I’ve gotten home, had a tidy around, eaten my dinner, sorted out my cloths for the next day and showered, I’m left with very little time to actually chill out and do the stuff I love to do, before it’s time for bed.
Then I’m up again at 6:30 to start the whole cycle again.
A 10 hour day, every day, just seems like the ultimate nightmare to me. And not even the promise of a 3 day weekend could shake away that feeling of dread.
Where would I find the time to read my latest book, or practice guitar, or all the other things I love to do in the evenings (obviously saving my weekends for family visits and socialising!)
I do, however, seem to be the only person in the office that feels this way. Am I maybe the only person in the world?
Maybe it’s the thought of change I dread more than anything. The 5 day work week is what we do as a country. Even school, the very start of our journey into the real world, was 5 days a week
One larger example of this new 4 day, 10 hour, work week is the state ofUtah.
In 2008, then-Governor Jon Huntsman, launched the “Working 4 Utah” plan to shift state workers from the five-day week to a Monday to Thursday, 7 a.m.-to-6 p.m.week.
And 3 years later it doesn’t look as though they have any plans at all to return to the 5 day working week. It seems as though, forUtah, the benefits to the 4 day week have far out weighed any of the negatives. They claim that employee satisfaction has risen considerably and they have even managed to save money on energy, in return helping to save the local environment.
For many the four-day week is all about gaining back their personal time. When asked about his extra day off, Jeff Herring, executive director of the Utah Department of Human Resource Management said “I’m a better husband and a better father,”
So is the 4 day working week a good Idea?
Read the following article and make up your own minds
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42918666/ns/business-careers/t/employers-rethinking-five-day-workweek/
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