A distinction is generally made between two forms of shorter working weeks: reduced and compressed working week. In the first case, the number of hours is cut, as is done in the pilot project in the Dominican Republic. In the second model, which some companies and public workplaces in Denmark use, the working week is 37 hours, but spread over four working days instead of five. Where both parts have advantages and disadvantages. – The long working days are the major disadvantage, which is also the case for the companies. You are not as productive in the 8th hour as in the 3rd hour, says Pernille Garde Abildgaard. Can we afford less work? Not everyone speaks warmly of a shorter working week. The opponents of a short working week in Denmark argue that it will not be possible to work less and at the same time be able to afford the Danish welfare society. Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen (S) has stated that the Danes should forget all about working less. The social democratic minister Kaare Dybvad published a book entitled Arbejds Land, in this book he criticizes the Danes’ desire to exchange time at the workplace with more time for themselves or their family. But Pernille Garde Abildgaard does not buy the argument that one cannot afford a shorter working week. – It is because they are the basis that productivity does not increase accordingly. They equate one hour’s work with one hour’s fixed productivity, the more hours one works, the higher the productivity. That probably applied on the factory assembly line, but it doesn’t apply to very many jobs today, she says. Trial in the UK was successful The results of the major trial of a four-day working week in the UK in 2022 were positive, to say the least. A majority of the companies that took part in the trial – 88 percent – reported that a four-day working week worked well for their company. At the same time, the study showed that cuts in working hours do not necessarily affect cuts in productivity. On the contrary. Almost half – 46 percent – reported that productivity remained at the same level. At the same time, 34 percent of the companies said that there was a small increase in productivity, and 15 percent said that there was a marked increase in productivity. This agrees with Pernille Garde Abildgaard’s experiences from her work with companies that cut the working days of their employees from five to four days a week. – Sometimes we see job satisfaction increase first, and you can also eventually see an increase in productivity. At other times, new ways of working are implemented, so that productivity increases and then work satisfaction follows, she says. A majority of the companies, around 86 per cent, in the experiment would like to keep a four-day working week after the project had ended. The trial in the Dominican Republic lasts six months. The first three months have been set aside to test the shorter working week, and the last three months will be used to evaluate the experiment. The university Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra, PUCMM, is behind the evaluation. The evaluation is done by looking at well-being, connection between work and family life, absence from work and impact on the environment.
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Caribbean countries are testing a shorter working week
