Is a four-day workweek feasible for Finance or IT teams?
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CTO in Healthcare and Biotecha year ago
For IT teams I think it would not be possible, because we have to be available at all times when needed. Unless, you have to divide the teams for those who have to available on the fifth-day and rotate them so they could be available. IMHO fourth-day weeks are not for every industry.
Senior Vice President Technology Vendor & Asset Management in Mediaa year ago
The majority of roles in a technology organization are not operational.
VP of Finance in Healthcare and Biotecha year ago
A four day work week is feasible but may not be optimal for a Finance team. The key is setting expectations that align with your organizational culture.Why do you or your team want to shift to a four day work week? What are the consequences of that change?
Senior Financial Analysta year ago
Whether this is feasible or not depends on your customers (internal and external.) If your customers have compressed workweeks, then this is possible. If not and you are expected to be available then no.There is the question of what type of 4-day work week you plan to adopt. For example there could be a straight 4 days for all (so Monday-Thursday or Tuesday to Friday) for all. You might have people work 8 hours/day or 10 hours/day. The alternative could be a rotating 4 day work week where some staff get an additional day off in the week. If you have a large contingent of AP/AR staff then having a rotation is possible, otherwise not. Things like month end, quarter end, year end etc. may get in the way though. Many tasks in finance require co-ordination or have dependencies on other teams. Its easy enough to say that for roles like AP/AR, the job consists mostly of entering data/processing invoices/cheques but a lot of time is spent reaching out to and dealing with other business partners. The availability of these people determines whether finance can perform its duties.
When it comes to time off its important to look at our past as well. Many years ago Stalin (yes that one) tried to have rotating weekends. The idea was logical. If people worked Monday-Friday then effectively equipment was idle for about 1/3 of time (2 weekend days out of 7 total days). Why not have a series of people have their "weekend" on different days, i.e. Monday & Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday etc. It is interesting that this was one of his few directives that was reversed. People valued having time off when everyone else did.
If you switch to a 4 day workweek expect that you'll likely put pressure on other businesses in your industry and geographic area. Also expect that if they do it first, pressure will be put on you. It is interesting to see these conversations since they do sort of mirror what happened in the past. We had the 8-8-8 movement which said, 8 hours of work, 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of leisure/other tasks. We had the push towards 5 days per week of work. Many industrialists complained that they made their profit on the 6th day but things adjusted. With the additional free time there was a demand for their products and the industrialists did invest in more labor saving technology. I strongly suspect that technology will play a role in a push towards a 4 day work week but I also worry about unintentional consequences. Consider the push for a "living" minimum wage. What this has led to is fewer jobs and where possible more automation. Many grocery stores are moving towards self-checkout because they are now cheaper than human cashiers even if people are more likely to steal. This is another reason why we've seen restaurants especially fast food restaurants move towards app based ordering. I wonder what will be the consequences of a 4 day work week.
I think initially business should try a split week. 50% of staff has Monday’s off and 50% have Fridays off. And every third or fifth week you switch from Monday of to Friday to try to make it “fair”. This might work best for larger companies where cross training is standard practice vs a 100 person firm where more roles are unique
We had 1/2 day Fridays from late May to mid-September. It was fantastic. Perhaps 1/2 day Monday’s and Fridays where you work from home would be more successful. Many people told 1/2 vacations on Friday since driving 45 minutes or an hour each way to work was economically foolish
For manufacturers it’s it’s less likely where staff must be onsite.
Hopefully it will become more mainstream for those who can make it work. 5 days a week where you are really connected 7x24 needs to adapt. 40-50 hours in the office and then 10-20+ via laptop and iPhone are draining when it becomes your standard workday