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The Reduced Working Week - Productivity or Sloth? · Mark and Pete

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  The reduced working week productivity or slow?
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  Hello, welcome to Mark and Pete where we're making sense of
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  today's world, one collapsing institution at a time.
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  Today, very serious question. Should the working week be
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  shorter or I'll be just looking for an acceptable way to stay in
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  bed? Yes, this is Mark and Pete, 2
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  blokes with half an opinion. Now here's our first thought.
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  Busy doing nothing? Some folks seek to reduce their
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  working week and then gain an additional day in bed.
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  But why not show some cheek and settle to go off peak to have a
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  five day tea break instead? Yes, maybe some people might
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  argue that that's exactly the way it is.
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  However, the Dutch have a different view now.
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  Quietly, they've been adopting just a four day week.
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  Why is this? Well, in their view, some of the
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  people in Amsterdam in particular believe that this is
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  actually a more productive way of working.
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  The world is changing, people are working from home, they need
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  more flexibility. More importantly, is it actually
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  better to choose a four day week and be more productive than a
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  five day week? Mr. Pete, I ask you, I know you
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  love your duvet days, but really, Surely reducing the
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  working week, That can't be good for anyone.
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  Well, there have been various attempts, haven't there, to put
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  this into practice. There are various different
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  motivations for it in the intro, suggesting that it was just to
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  stay in bed under the duvet. But there are other motivations
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  for it. Sometimes it's lack of
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  availability of electricity. Sometimes it's because, well,
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  there just simply isn't enough work.
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  If everyone's working at 4 weeks, so we'll have less days
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  and then more people get work. There's different motivations
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  that that are put forward at least for this change.
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  But it I, I would suggest my right up front here that yeah, I
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  do think that the five day week isn't really acceptable.
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  I just think it should be 6 days.
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  Well, there is another argument exactly.
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  Now I'm going to come from a from a business perspective and
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  that is, is that I understand the rationale of looking at
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  people's well-being. And I do agree that you know, we
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  already have contracts in place. Most people typically tend to
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  work either a 37 1/2 to 40 hour week.
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  That's like a standard working week and it typically goes from
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  a Monday to Friday. Now there are, of course there
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  are exceptions. There are people who work in
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  retail and other industries and they have to work either on a
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  Saturday or a Sunday, but typically most people work five
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  days. There's another reason as well,
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  because actually most companies will have international
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  customers. Now, that means that you're
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  working on different time zones. In some cases, that means you
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  have to work multiple days and that also means that you need to
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  be available. Now what I would say here is, is
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  that reducing the working week could cause some challenges
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  there because if you're not necessarily aligned, say for
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  example, you've got customers in China and you're based in
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  America, well that could cause some issues.
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  Now I know that some people say, well, it's all about balancing
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  out the workload with the workforce, but I still think
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  that the productivity is more around how you get more out of
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  the individuals rather than reducing their individual days
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  is what is it that they really are looking to do.
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  Now what are the rationales for this is that the FNV, which is
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  like a AA1 of the biggest unions in the the Netherlands is
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  actually trying to lobby to make this official recommendation to
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  go to a four day week. Now I'm all for unions honestly
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  really, but the bottom line is sometimes unions are not always
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  working to the cause of the business.
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  And I think that whilst that you do have your legal rights to
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  potentially reduce your hours if you wish as an individual, I
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  think that from the point of view of business, and let's be
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  honest, the economy is really bad, we need all people on hand
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  to help. So here's my thought, if
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  somebody does want to either maybe you know, sort of reduce
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  their hours, why not balance it against the needs of the
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  business. Now, to your point, that may
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  mean that they might have to work on a Saturday or they might
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  have to work maybe on a Sunday. So Mr. Pete, I was going to say
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  just simply simply having a blanket policy of four day week
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  is is probably going down the wrong path.
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  Surely it has to be more aligned to what the business needs
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  rather than just simply say we're only going to work four
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  days a week. Yes, I, I, I think that's right.
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  And but you see my take on this coming from a Christian point of
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  view is to say that there should be limits on how much you, you
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  are required to work each week in employment.
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  And that should that limit should be your only you're can
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  only work up to six days a week because that's the biblical
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  model. 6 days you shall work and on the 7th you shall W just as
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  God did in creation. That's the the the mandate from
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  the Bible for it. And various attempts to change
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  that routine have failed. Now we have a 2 day weekend.
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  Of course. Why?
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  Why Liam used across the world, not just in Britain and America,
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  but across and Europe and across the world.
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  This idea of a 2 day weekend is quite common.
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  I would argue that that's not actually the biblical mandates
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  that that you you should work for six days, one day.
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  So that's what I was serious as suggesting that six days was a
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  better model. The question is how many hours
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  then how many hours do you work each day and whether you need
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  time, you know, more time off on one of those days.
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  That's fair enough. That's you should have a day of
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  rest, but that's not necessarily the day that you worship.
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  I just put that, you know, in the early church they had
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  Saturday off and they worshipped on Sunday before they have to
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  work. It seems so, you know, they're
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  not necessarily the same. So this is this is this is my my
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  take on it is this yes, the productivity I don't think well,
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  it's been shown in various studies, including national
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  experiments in time of war. They don't agree.
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  If you work more than six days a week in revolutionary France,
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  the 10 day week was tried and that really didn't work.
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  There's there was also a city in China where this was tried, but
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  reducing it doesn't necessarily increase it either because this
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  is my this is now the the peat theory that if you reduce it
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  such you're part time, you end up having a part time attitude
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  to work and as your productivity isn't increased.
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  Well, I agree. Now here's the rub.
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  The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in
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  the Netherlands has confirmed this because it's said that
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  whilst that there is high productivity per worker in some
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  cases in the Netherlands, what it's seen over the last 15 years
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  is the productivity has not grown.
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  Yes, they're in line. So the peat theory is
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  vindicated. Yeah.
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  Well, the bottom line is, is that I think that I understand
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  the Dutch are sort of coming from one perspective on the,
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  should we say the the work of rights side.
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  And it's true that some people have even traded time for money
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  or money for time. And that's something that's
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  another factor as well. But, but the, the general
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  economists have said that really by reducing the working week
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  doesn't mean to say that organisations are actually
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  giving greater productivity. It hasn't actually grown the
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  economy in the way that the perhaps they would have thought.
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  Well, now that that, that all I, that's what I would say is, is
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  that surely you have to sort of sort of adapt to the, to the
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  market forces and what is required of your trading
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  partners. That includes, obviously, Europe
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  and many other countries. Just to, to summarise my view,
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  yes, I, I think that that's correct.
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  I think that really the limit should be 6 days a week that
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  you're required to work. And of those which six days and
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  whether you have your employees working for less, perhaps five
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  days is up to, should be up to the company that's doing the
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  employment. Of course, for state sector, you
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  can perhaps organise things more from a, from, from, from the,
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  from the, you can organise things out more centrally.
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  But I don't think that that's, you know, that should even, that
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  should even be different in that you just have things organised
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  depending what department you're working for, what works for the
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  department, But no more than six.
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  That's what I would say. I worked as a clergyman for, for
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  a few years and during that time I worked a six day week.
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  That was just standard. So it, it can, the six days can
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  be, can be a normal 1. I mean, some people think that
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  actually clergy work a one day week, but that's sort of the
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  matter. Yes.
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  Well, what's interesting here is another angle, which is around
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  women. Yes.
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  Now a study in 2024 found that one in three people in the
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  Netherlands think that mothers with very young children, for
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  example age 3 or younger, should not work more than one day a
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  week. And nearly 80% think that three
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  days a week is the maximum. So that puts a different
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  perspective, doesn't it? But at the end of the day, I
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  still come back to other countries balance, you know,
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  their work life with their private life.
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  They still work A5 day week. So I, I know that, you know,
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  obviously having rights, etcetera, whether it be about
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  you as a, as a worker, depending on your industry.
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  But what do you think about the principle of those who maybe are
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  starting a family? Should they have greater rights
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  to have their their working week reduced?
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  Well, I can give you a very short answer to that.
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  I think the answer is no. I think what we need is
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  incentives for entrepreneurs, for businesses to set up, you
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  know, create more wealth in society.
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  But we, what we don't need is legislation forcing then
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  companies to be less productive and less profitable because,
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  yeah, you can say up to a certain limit or people are
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  going to be more profitable per hour.
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  Yeah, there's going to be a limit for that, isn't there?
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  And I So, no, I don't think that's the case.
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  I think that it should be the case that my this is a preamble
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  to me saying it should be the case that one person, usually
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  the man in most households will be able to afford to run to pay
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  for everything in the household and the mother or some cases the
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  father can stay at home with the children.
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  That's what I think you should aim for, and starting down this
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  route of giving handouts or requiring companies to pay for
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  someone who isn't actually turning up to work is going to
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  in the end mean that we all earn less, so you're less likely.
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  Yes, in. The long run to be able to
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  afford to have time off to look after your children.
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  It's we, it's been done, it's been tried.
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  We've gone down that route for years.
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  Handouts and then onerous requirements on companies.
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  Let's not go down that route any further.
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  Well, I agree. And then just to close on my
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  point of view, I know that the FNV Union in the Netherlands has
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  said that a four day week can help close the gender pay gap.
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  You can gain productivity and less absenteeism.
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  So they claim, well, as far as I'm concerned, when it comes to
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  the economy and when it comes to the workforce, that just sounds
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  like double Dutch to me.