Covid and remote work changed the workplace. Now let's change the work week — to 4 days, Matthew Gallagher writes for NBCNewsTHINK.
famously said of postwar bureaucracy in 1955: “It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” This phenomenon, now called Parkinson’s Law, indicates how deadlines are motivating. Similarly, the, developed by two psychologists at the turn of the last century, suggests that there is an optimum level of arousal that improves our task performance. We just need to get the balance right.
After the big experiments in our working lives that we went through in 2020, we should keep experimenting — and learning — in 2021 and 2022. The same managers who rolled their eyes at the work-from-home crowd are the ones rolling their eyes at the four-day work week. Just as they have been proven wrong by remote working, I believe they will be proven wrong by the four-day work week.
But that’s why I’m piloting this idea before committing to it permanently. I think four days will allow people to get back as much of their lives as possible while ensuring they still fulfill what the business needs from them. Part of this experiment is to make sure that’s the case, that the approach creates more motivation and not more stress, that employees can be more focused and more efficient — really working, not just filling their time — for four days in return for an extra day off.
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