JASON OM, REPORTER:\u00a0For most Australians, we\u2019re slogging away five days a week trying to juggle our lives and avoid burnout.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s a different way of working that\u2019s catching on around the world – a four-day week on the same pay.<\/p>\n
For the past 18 months hundreds of workers in the Medibank\u2019s budget brand, AHM have had an extra day to themselves.<\/p>\n
SALLY HAYDON, AHM EMPLOYEE:\u00a0We\u2019ve chosen a day across AHM, most of us take Friday off.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been pretty transformative, and it\u2019s only one day but it\u2019s made such a difference.<\/p>\n
JASON OM:\u00a0 For manager, Sally Haydon, it means she can spend more time with her family and compared to before.<\/p>\n
SALLY HAYDON:\u00a0 I felt that like I was always rushing, just being so busy and time poor but when I was with my kids, I wasn\u2019t 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I’ve had time to do more exercise which is pretty awesome I didn\u2019t have much time before that, and just getting time for myself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
JASON OM:\u00a0 But workers are still expected to be productive – delivering the same amount of work in a shorter amount of time. To do that, it\u2019s led to a plus that many of us could probably relate to.<\/p>\n
SALLY HAYDON:\u00a0 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. \u00a0<\/p>\n
We are more engaged because the work that we do is more meaningful and there\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
JASON OM:\u00a0 But the extra day off is not guaranteed. They still have to clock on that day if there\u2019s more work to be done.<\/p>\n
SALLY HAYDON:\u00a0 It\u2019s not an entitlement for us and the business comes first but we need to ensure that we continue to strive to reinvent work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
JASON OM:\u00a0 The four-day week has been around for decades\u00a0 made popular after Iceland began trialling it in 2015. It\u2019s now spread across the globe.<\/p>\n
TIMOTHY CAMPBELL, DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY:\u00a0 Japan, the UK, US, Spain, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and many more are trialling four day working weeks.<\/p>\n
JASON OM:\u00a0 And this month, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has implemented a shorter week for all public sector employees.<\/p>\n
TIMOTHY CAMPBELL:\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
JASON OM:\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
TIMOTHY CAMPBELL:\u00a0What 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u2019s the important point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
JASON OM:\u00a0 Medibank commissioned Macquarie University researchers to review the trial. So far workers have reported feeling healthier and more engaged.<\/p>\n
DR REBECCA MITCHELL, MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY:\u00a0 For the most part we found that performance went up. So for some situations performance stayed the same, we didn\u2019t find any occasion where performance decreased.\u00a0<\/p>\n
JASON OM:\u00a0 Workers\u2019 intention of leaving the company as well as calling in sick also reduced.<\/p>\n
REBECCA MITCHELL:\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
JASON OM:\u00a0 Of course, there are some industries where it\u2019s just not possible and you can\u2019t squeeze more work into fewer hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over at Ikea Australia there is a different model. Full-time staff have been offered the option of compressing the same hours they\u2019d work in a five-day week into four longer days.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
JASON OM:\u00a0 A 10 hour day is very long. Isn’t that tiring?\u00a0<\/p>\n
GREG DAY:\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
JASON OM:\u00a0 Has it increased productivity?<\/p>\n
GREG DAY:\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u2019s opportunities to have a career in retail.<\/p>\n
JASON OM:\u00a0 While some Australian companies are testing out the four-day week, it\u2019s far from the norm.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
But at next month\u2019s economic summit, the Manufacturing Workers\u2019 Union will push for a four-day week arguing it will increase productivity.<\/p>\n
The Australian Services Union agrees.<\/p>\n
IMOGEN STURNI, AUSTRALIAN SERVICES UNION:\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u2019 time.<\/p>\n
JASON OM:\u00a0 But it seems a four-day week at an official level has been ruled out. The federal government telling us that it\u2019s not a priority.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Others insist the future must be about working to live not living to work.<\/p>\n
TIMOTHY CAMPBELL:\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JASON OM, REPORTER:\u00a0For most Australians, we\u2019re slogging away five days a week trying to juggle our lives and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28408,64,63,3786,44,28409],"class_list":["post-29929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-4-day-working-week","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-government","tag-news","tag-working-conditions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}