A four-day working week! The sound of it is like music to every working individuals’ ear. But will it ever come true? Or is it just another myth?

A couple of economists, however, argued that the world should embrace four-days working a week concept as it reduces the working hours and helps to be attentive at work and better productivity. In a session at the World Economic Forum at Davos this year, Adam Grant and Rutger Bregman argued and explained the pros of working less in a week, theladders.com reported.

“Professionals and workers end up producing just as much, often with higher quality and creativity, and they are also more loyal to the organisations that are willing to give them the flexibility to care about their lives outside of work,” Grant, a psychologist from the Wharton School in Pennsylvania said.

In the 1920s and 1930s, there were actually major capitalist entrepreneurs who discovered that if you shorten the working week, employees become more productive. Henry Ford, for example, discovered that if he changed the working week from 60 hours to 40 hours, his employees would become more productive, because they were not that tired in their spare time.According to multiple studies conducted all over the world, a shorter working week would make people happier and more productive, the report said, adding that OECD data shows that countries with a culture of long working hours have less productivity and GDP per hour worked.

Studies revealed lower stress levels, higher levels of job satisfaction, and an improved sense of work-life balance among the participants, the report said.

A shorter working week is not considered that radical as policymakers have been trying to figure out how to give the workforce more leisure time. “For decades, all the major economists, philosophers, sociologists, they all believed, up until the 1970s, that we would be working less and less,” economist and historian Rutger Bregman said.

First Published:Feb 22, 2019 3:57 PM IST