Right: Economist and writer John Quiggin: 'There's never been a better time for Australia to embrace the 4-day week'.
 Found a word you're not familiar with? Double-click that word to bring up a dictionary reference to it. The dictionary page includes an audio sound file with which to actually hear the word said. |
Arguments against Australia introducing a four-day workweek
1. A four-day workweek is difficult to implement in many workplacesCritics of the four-day workweek claim that it is unsuitable for many types of workplaces.
Opponents claim that the four-day workweek is only suited to some white-collar occupations. Its opponents point out that most companies that have taken part in recent successful trials for this new workday arrangement come from a narrow range of enterprises. Most participants were from the marketing, advertising and professional services industries where working hours are more easily reshuffled. Office-based corporate firms can shape their work hours and typically have a five-day workweek, totalling 35-40 hours.
Unlike many other occupations they are not facing an immediate or constant demand for a service.Critics also argue that four-day workweeks only suit workplaces where non-essential activities can be reduced or eliminated. Tony Veal, an adjunct professor at the University of Technology Sydney, suggests in office workplaces, with more 'slack in the system', a four-day week is easier to implement.
Research from the United Kingdom suggests that the average British office worker is productive (directly on task) for only two hours and 53 minutes out of the working day. New Zealand investment and estate planning manager, Andrew Barnes, initiated the four-day week in his own company, and then more broadly, when he discovered his 240 employees were productive for only about a quarter of their average workday. Office-based jobs with significant downtime make it possible to reduce a day a week from the work schedule, where many other occupations do not.Jobs that require workers to service an immediate or constant demand are not suited to a four-day week. Health care work, for example, is difficult to accommodate in a four-day workweek model. For many health-care workers, especially nurses, longer hours and shift work are the norm. Nurses are often expected to work on public holidays and may have to work for six or seven consecutive days before having a few days off, instead of the standard five days on, two days off. Also, many health-care services, such as hospitals and aged care facilities, require staffing seven days a week. Any restructured work arrangements would have to ensure continuous, adequate staffing. Consequently, a direct transition from a five-day to a four-day workweek would not be possible in many health care facilities.
Karin Sanders, Professor in the School of Management and Governance at University of New South Wales Business School has also noted that for someone in construction, hospitality, education, or care sectors working within a four-day week structure may be much more difficult. For some of these professions (like construction) Professor Sanders says working on Saturday morning is unavoidable. These are all jobs where the worker is tied much more directly to meeting the immediate demand of a client or consumer.Critics also note that, in manual jobs, workers could be put under unreasonable strain to produce five days' output in four. Kristin Schwab, writing for The Workplace in September 2023, noted, 'Physical work has physical limitations. You can only assemble so many cars in a day.'
Ben Friedrich, a professor of strategy at Northwestern University, Illinois, is similarly concerned that a four-day workweek would create an excessive workload in jobs with little surplus capacity. Professor Friedrich stated, 'If it just means a faster assembly line and people getting really stressed and being put under a lot of pressure, I don't think that they would like that.' Jobs where the employee is paid according to an hourly rate or performs short-term casual work are also not suited to a four-day workweek. Social commentators are concerned that the introduction of a four-day workweek might benefit those in secure, well-regulated employment but would discriminate further against other workers. They worry that if market forces are allowed to determine what happens, some companies will opt for a four-day week while Uber drivers and Amazon factory workers will continue to work longer and more unpredictable hours just to survive.
Critics claim a four-day week is not viable for many or even most workers. Abigail Marks, Professor of the Future of Work at Newcastle University, has argued, 'Many workers will say it's unworkable for them due to the volume of work (bank debt collectors, university staff); or because they already work crippling 12-hour shifts and can't cram more into a day (delivery drivers, many self-employed workers); or don't earn enough to have the luxury of having three days off each week (care workers, gig-economy workers).' Marks also notes, 'Others will say it's impossible due to the nature of the work (emergency services, medical work and hospitality).'
2. A four-day workweek has a negative impact on customer service
Those with major reservations about the four-day workweek are concerned that it will result in poorer customer service.
Some critics of the four-day workweek believe that it will cause a reduction in the quality of products and services offered to customers as workers struggle to meet consumer demands in less time. According to research conducted by Steven Rydin, chief executive officer at B2Breviews.com there is concern among some businesses that the four-day week will have a negative impact on customer service and satisfaction and will go against industry standards. Rydin found that this worry was shared by employees who were apprehensive about reduced availability of services or products and about longer response times creating frustrations among clients.
Jo Ayoub, chief executive officer of Track Surveys, noted, 'If you're offering a four-day week, but it's actually a five-day week squashed into four long days, then customer service and experience will suffer. Tired, overworked employees don't offer a great customer experience!' Reduced service availability is a significant problem undermining what can be offered to customers. Iain Fisher, director at global technology research and advisory firm ISG, has observed, 'An organisation that deploys a...four-day week may struggle to compete in customer experience and customer service against one that doesn't, simply due to availability of contact staff.'
The same point was made by Kelly Tucker, the founder and managing director of the HR Star. Tucker wrote, 'A significant drawback of the 4-day workweek is that it may lead to decreased customer service availability during off-hours. With fewer employees on duty each day, companies could have difficulty maintaining the customer service level their customers anticipate.' This can either lead to goods arriving late or to some services being available on fewer days, as with a restaurant or a hairdresser that opens only four days a week. Reduced availability is highly problematic when an essential service is affected. A 2011 study conducted in Utah found that customers expressed dissatisfaction due to the closure of state government offices on Fridays, which restricted their access to services over a two-and-a-half-year period. After the Utah experiment, a Republican state representative, Mike Noel, warned, 'The biggest concerns came from people who had to access services on Friday. The business community didn't like it, and the court system didn't like it at all. ... The whole idea, it just didn't work very well... I think there is a place for flexible schedules, but you've got to be very, very careful and make sure the public's needs are met.'
Reduced availability to customers can be a critical factor determining whether businesses begin or continue a four-day workweek. Recent research has found that among United States companies that decided not to adopt the four-day week, 75 percent indicated not being available to customers was the biggest barrier. Michelle Hawley writing for Reworked in February 2023, noted, 'Many businesses today rely on 24/7 customer-business relationships. They want customer service agents and other staff available to source information, answer questions and keep customers satisfied. But switching to a new schedule could complicate things.'
Availability to customers is a critical issue for small businesses supplying a local market. They may not have sufficient staff to be able to roster them across five days and so their access to customers will be reduced by a fifth. Small Business Organisations Australia has noted, 'Not every business can produce 38 hours of outcome in 30 hours. For instance, when customers expect a shop to be open and it is not, the customer will shop elsewhere. So many businesses are consumer driven, not process alone... The proposal to reduce hours means a further reduction in a business' ability to earn income.'
3. The four-day workweek will increase costs for employers and consumers
Opponents of the four-day week claim that it comes with significant financial costs for both the employer and the employee.
The four-day workweek reduces profit-making opportunities for some businesses. This is particularly costly for businesses described as 'customer-facing', that is, businesses that provide a service for customers that come to the business premises or that are performed in the client's home. These face-to-face interactions mean that the service must be supplied when the customer is there to receive it. Small Business Organisation Australia has noted, 'Not every business can produce 38 hours of outcome in 30 hours. For instance, when customers expect a shop to be open and it is not, the customer will shop elsewhere...The proposal to reduce hours means a further reduction in a business' ability to earn income.'
Research by the Henley Business School in 2019, called Four Better or Four Worse found that the biggest barrier to implementing a four-day week for businesses was concerns about being unavailable for the customer (82 percent). The businesses are concerned that if they are not open and not providing a service, they will not make a profit. Labour costs have also been a particular problem for companies trialling the four-day week. To overcome making a loss through closing one day in five, many companies have taken on more staff. Critics claim that this additional labour cost is also seriously cutting into profits.
Liberty Vittert, professor of data science at Washington University in St. Louis, has explained the impact that these additional staffing costs can have. He states, 'For any customer-facing business, a four-day week would be a nightmare. If your company is open only four days a week, or if it has significantly reduced operations one day each week, then how do people reach your staff? The result is that companies have to hire more staff, which in turn raises costs.' Overtime and increased staff payments are also an issue for employers. In France, employees working on a reduced day schedule are often required to work additional hours. This has been difficult for business owners as these employees must be paid overtime for work that would previously have fallen within their normal workweek.
Where businesses currently have large numbers of part-time staff, transferring to a four-day week can be very costly, as workers paid for part-time employment might become eligible for full-time renumeration. Recruitment agency Head Resourcing have noted that for their business, shifting to a four-day week would have been too expensive. The company's head has stated, 'From a business leader's perspective, the costs of implementing a four-day week for small to medium-sized businesses are disproportionate to the commercial benefits it may bring. In companies such as ours, where at least a fifth of our staff already work part-time hours, the cost of boosting their wage alone would be material.' Employers must also manage legal and compliance issues related to working hours, overtime, and labour laws when transitioning to a four-day work week. Getting the legal and administrative advice to manage this correctly is another associated cost for the business owner.
Critics have argued that prices will rise for consumers as well. If business owners' costs have increased, these expenses are likely to be passed on to the customer. Peter Strong, the former chief executive of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, has stated. 'The four-day week would increase prices...This means the people working four days and getting paid for five will likely have to get a second job to pay for the price increases.'
Professor Adrian Palmer of the Henley Business School at the University of Reading, has warned, 'Customers would need to accept rising costs of labour-intensive services where hourly wage rates are effectively increased by 20 percent. Some personal services - like a haircut or food delivery - may become a luxury to be enjoyed by groups benefiting from the four-day work week. Meanwhile, an underclass would work harder, only to afford automated versions of these services.' 4. The four-day workweek will worsen many workers' conditions
Those who oppose the four-day workweek claim that it may make workers' lives more difficult rather than better. They argue that the trade-offs that will be required for a four-day workweek, with retained productivity, are likely to worsen employees' conditions.
Critics of the four-day workweek note that there is a disturbing tendency for employees to accept reductions in their conditions to gain the apparent benefit of a four-day week. A July 2023 Bankrate Economic Indicator poll conducted among United States workers found 89 percent of full-time workers who support a four-day workweek would sacrifice something at work in exchange. 54 percent indicated they would work longer hours and 16 percent said they would accept shorter holidays. 23 percent were prepared to work 'off-peak' hours (working evenings or weekends) and 10 percent were prepared to receive a pay cut.
Opponents of the new development are concerned that it will result in workers being willing to accept an overall erosion of their working conditions.Those who object to the four-day workweek argue that the continuous concentration workers must maintain over a four-day workweek, without extended hours, is not sustainable.
They claim that retaining the same level of productivity in a 20 percent shorter period means each of the four days at work becomes more demanding. Krystal, a British Internet services company which trialled the four-day workweek in 2023, reverted to the five-day week because employees found the new arrangement too onerous. The company's chief executive officer, Simon Blackler, said that members of his team tried 'admirably' to stay on top of their workloads and ensure that a normal service was maintained, but found that this led to a more stressful four days at work overall. In a recent British study completed for the Labour Party, economist Robert Skidelsky warned against increasing exhaustion as contracted employees crammed their work into four days. Marian Baird, professor of gender and employment relations at the University of Sydney, has warned that those unable to complete their work onsite in the time available may simply take it home and so undo the supposed benefit of increased leisure time. The issue of increased stress may be an even greater problem for people who are working part-time when their employer adopts the four-day week. Employees already working reduced hours must complete their assigned tasks in even less time. Sydney aged care software company, Mirus Australia, trialled the four-day week in 2021 but changed back after six months. Mirus chief personnel officer, Mandy Lipschitz, stated, 'We found that part-timers squeezing their workweek, which was already really short, into less hours, was actually creating more stress.'
Research from the University of Queensland, which is part of the 4 Day Week Global joint study, has found several stress-related difficulties with the four-day workweek. These include, 'Condensing workloads into four days...[putting] a lot of pressure on workers and potentially increased monitoring, surveillance, and micro-managing of employees to ensure they complete workloads.' Critics note that many businesses have introduced a four-day workweek but not reduced the total number of hours their employees are required to work. They have retained a 36- or 40-hour workweek by lengthening the workdays to nine or ten hours. PerformHR has warned of the increased pressure that can result from longer working days. They note, 'Compressed working hours mean that the four days within a 4-day work week may become increasingly stressful. Monday to Thursday workdays will grow 90 minutes longer, meaning many employees will be working between 8am to 5pm (or 9am to 6pm), with only a half an hour lunch break in the middle.'
Studies looking at the effect regular overtime have shown some of the negative consequences that come with increasing the length of the workday. A 2008 United States study found that long working hours are linked with higher anxiety and depression levels. It also found sleep problems were common after long working days, noting 'There is a negative association between number of hours of sleep during weekdays and extended workhours. Additionally, it has been claimed that longer working days are associated with increased risk of injury at work, especially in manual occupations. This is because fatigue reduces concentration and increases the likelihood of accidents. Critics note that longer working days serve to undermine the supposed advantages of the four-day workweek.5. The four-day workweek will reduce collaboration and teamwork
Critics of the four-day workweek argue that it can harm businesses by reducing the opportunity for workers to collaborate and function as a team.
Commentators have observed that collaboration and teamwork can be impeded by the four-day workweek. Business coach, Rachel Daphne, has warned, 'A shorter workweek may hinder teamwork and collaboration, as employees have fewer days to meet and discuss projects. This in turn could slow down decision-making processes and potentially harm project outcomes, especially in industries where teamwork is crucial.'
Critics claim that the four-day week's dampening effect on collaboration is a significant problem because collaboration is so important to business success. Business psychologists and corporate leaders have stressed the value of teamwork in the workplace. British business and corporate hardware consultants, BrightHR, have noted, 'Multiple minds working on difficult tasks or projects will achieve better results and offer different solutions than individuals working alone... Collaboration fuels creativity by combining differing perspectives and experiences to generate innovative solutions.'
Research has indicated that in a commercial environment where remote and hybrid (onsite-offsite) work is becoming more common, collaboration in the workplace has become even more important. American financial market analyst, John J Murphy has stressed that teamwork and collaboration are central to corporations' success. He has stated, 'Each individual has unique gifts, and talents and skills. When we bring them to the table and share them for a common purpose, it can give companies a real competitive advantage.' Organisational psychologist, Constance Hadley, of Boston University, has noted that there will be structural impediments to collaborative work as part of the four-day week. Firstly, there is the obvious difficulty of reduced opportunities to meet during the shorter week; however, difficulties may be compounded where staff do not all have the same workdays, and the coordination of their respective rosters affects any decision to collaborate. Hadley sees as a significant element in the success of any reduced working week 'how much work is dependent upon collaborative work that requires coordinating schedules across individuals on one less day a week.'
In businesses where collaboration is crucial, the four-day week may not be a viable option.The four-day workweek could also reduce social cohesion between people working for the same company. American consulting and investment firm, Mercer, has considered the advantages and disadvantages of various workplace structures. One of its observations about the four-day week is 'Less time in the workplace could mean that employees have less chance to socialize and collaborate with colleagues, which could have a negative impact on their social well-being.'
Employers have been warned against seeing social interactions between workers as a distraction and a waste of time. Harvard University's MIT Management School's employer toolkit states, 'The quality of social relationships in the workplace matters for employee health and well-being. The evidence shows that positive social connections at work-supportive interactions, a sense of belonging, and effective teamwork-improve worker well-being and can protect against harmful effects of workplace stress. Positive relationships at work are also good for the bottom line. Research shows that these connections can increase productivity by improving how employees work together to get the job done.' During the 2022-2023 British trial of the four-day week several downsides were noted due to a lack of social interaction between staff. A common strategy employed by these companies during the trial was interruption-free 'focus periods'. Sociologist Professor Brendan Burchell, who led the University of Cambridge research on the trial noted, 'Workers were much less inclined to kill time, and actively sought out technologies that improved their productivity.' However, the Oxford research found that not all companies involved found this intense focus desirable. Some creative companies expressed disquiet over reduced worktime conviviality due to 'focus time' and argued that unstructured chat often generates new ideas.