Could a 4-day working week be coming to Australia?

JASON OM, REPORTER: For most Australians, we’re slogging away five days a week trying to juggle our lives and avoid burnout.

But there’s a different way of working that’s catching on around the world – a four-day week on the same pay.

For the past 18 months hundreds of workers in the Medibank’s budget brand, AHM have had an extra day to themselves.

SALLY HAYDON, AHM EMPLOYEE: We’ve chosen a day across AHM, most of us take Friday off.

It’s been pretty transformative, and it’s only one day but it’s made such a difference.

JASON OM:  For manager, Sally Haydon, it means she can spend more time with her family and compared to before.

SALLY HAYDON:  I felt that like I was always rushing, just being so busy and time poor but when I was with my kids, I wasn’t really with them. I was always thinking about what I had to do next or multitasking, and so now I feel like a lot calmer and when I’m doing something I’m doing that. 

I’ve had time to do more exercise which is pretty awesome I didn’t have much time before that, and just getting time for myself. 

JASON OM:  But workers are still expected to be productive – delivering the same amount of work in a shorter amount of time. To do that, it’s led to a plus that many of us could probably relate to.

SALLY HAYDON:  A really key shift for us is reducing meetings. So we are all in way too many meetings and we were in too many meetings.  

We are more engaged because the work that we do is more meaningful and there’s less waste work where our teams were. Why am I in this meeting? Why do I need to fill in this form – that type of thing is what we really reduced. 

JASON OM:  But the extra day off is not guaranteed. They still have to clock on that day if there’s more work to be done.

SALLY HAYDON:  It’s not an entitlement for us and the business comes first but we need to ensure that we continue to strive to reinvent work. 

JASON OM:  The four-day week has been around for decades  made popular after Iceland began trialling it in 2015. It’s now spread across the globe.

TIMOTHY CAMPBELL, DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY:  Japan, the UK, US, Spain, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and many more are trialling four day working weeks.

JASON OM:  And this month, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has implemented a shorter week for all public sector employees.

TIMOTHY CAMPBELL:  I believe it will help people to have better work-life balances, but at the same time can help organisations as well get the most out of the people, if you put it where it fits.

JASON OM:  Timothy Campbell has reviewed 31 global studies into the four-day week. He believes the benefits are overstated and that companies set themselves up for failure with inadequate preparation and unrealistic expectations.

TIMOTHY CAMPBELL: What is being promoted at the moment is that entire countries should take on a four-day working week, where entire organisations, no matter what department you work for, no matter what your job role is, should take on a four-day working week. 

And that’s not going to work because it doesn’t work for entire organisations, countries, et cetera. What we need to do is find out where it does work. That’s the important point. 

JASON OM:  Medibank commissioned Macquarie University researchers to review the trial. So far workers have reported feeling healthier and more engaged.

DR REBECCA MITCHELL, MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY:  For the most part we found that performance went up. So for some situations performance stayed the same, we didn’t find any occasion where performance decreased. 

JASON OM:  Workers’ intention of leaving the company as well as calling in sick also reduced.

REBECCA MITCHELL:  We know that work can be one of the biggest causes of ill health. Eating healthier, maybe consuming less alcohol, engaging in mild exercise, that explained a lot of the increased engagement at work and that was the biggest contributor to performance. 

JASON OM:  Of course, there are some industries where it’s just not possible and you can’t squeeze more work into fewer hours. 

Over at Ikea Australia there is a different model. Full-time staff have been offered the option of compressing the same hours they’d work in a five-day week into four longer days.   

JASON OM:  A 10 hour day is very long. Isn’t that tiring? 

GREG DAY:  In our agreement, we have breaks, there’s regular breaks, there’s a 10-hour shift, for example, there’s two meal breaks and there’s rest breaks. 

JASON OM:  Has it increased productivity?

GREG DAY:  Yeah. Productivity is not what we were going for with introducing the four-day work week. For us, it is more about providing the flexibility that coworkers need to be able to choose to stay with us actually. 

We are offering a four-day week for our store coworkers in their enterprise agreement because we want to show that retail is more than just a job for now. There’s opportunities to have a career in retail.

JASON OM:  While some Australian companies are testing out the four-day week, it’s far from the norm.

Two years ago a senate committee recommended the federal government undertake a trial in a variety of workplaces. At the time the government simply noted that recommendation.

But at next month’s economic summit, the Manufacturing Workers’ Union will push for a four-day week arguing it will increase productivity.

The Australian Services Union agrees.

IMOGEN STURNI, AUSTRALIAN SERVICES UNION:  The ASU negotiated a four-day work week with Oxfam Australia a couple of years ago now so that was a four-day work week at full time pay. 

We have been able to successfully get a four-day work week trials in a couple of other agreements across Victoria and now we want to make sure that the four-day work week is absolutely on the agenda in these discussions around productivity in Canberra in a few weeks’ time.

JASON OM:  But it seems a four-day week at an official level has been ruled out. The federal government telling us that it’s not a priority.   

Others insist the future must be about working to live not living to work.

TIMOTHY CAMPBELL:  We need to get the most out of our people, and the four day working week is one of the tools that can help do that because you can give to your people increased leisure time, increased time to think, but then to be more focused in the time that they have at work and to contribute.