The four-day workweek could offer a unique solution to unemployment while taking the pressure off South Africa\u2019s stressed-out workers, says a youth advisory, training, recruitment, and placement organisation. advisory, and placement company.<\/p>\n
This follows the announcement of a ground-breaking project set to be piloted in South Africa (SA), which will see employers trial the concept with employees locally. A non-profit company, 4 Day Work Week SA has reportedly announced recruiting employers to participate in a pilot project for 2023.<\/p>\n
The initiative will see employees at participating companies working for 80% of their regular working hours for 100% of the pay and is part of a global initiative that began earlier this year, with participating organisations already reporting positive results.<\/p>\n
How the four-day work week could help curb unemployment<\/strong><\/p>\n Afrika Tikkun Services (ATS) welcomes this bold move, and while it is not a blanket solution for all work environments, it believes that certain working environments will benefit from this approach and that this model could help curb SA\u2019s soaring unemployment levels.<\/p>\n ATS encourages investigating a model where the extra day is used to create a job for unemployed youth. \u201cIn light of SA\u2019s high youth unemployment, employees may be accommodating of a trade-off where the extra day enables someone else to put food on the table for themselves and their family via an employment intervention,\u201d said ATS CEO Onyi Nwaneri.<\/p>\n Over half of the country\u2019s youth is without work, despite having a tertiary qualification. According to Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) the graduate unemployment rate was 40.3% for those aged 15\u201324 and 15,5% among those aged 25\u201334 years.<\/p>\n Among the millions of unemployed, qualified young people are those who may benefit from opportunities created on the open weekday.<\/p>\n A win-win for employers and employees?<\/strong><\/p>\n The hypothesis of the four-day workweek concept is that employees should be able to produce 100% of the work expected of them and be far happier and more productive if they are only required to work four days a week instead of five.<\/p>\n ATS believes it is key to determine what works for your company and what will enable the company as a collective to achieve set goals and objectives. An output and outcome-based culture drives not only productivity but also innovation.<\/p>\n Data from Stats SA over the last few quarters highlights South Africa\u2019s productivity problem, with SA Labour Productivity dropping by 3.80 % year-on-year in Jun 2022, compared with a growth of 3.27 % in the previous quarter.<\/p>\n Industries are not operating at their optimum and are in desperate need of innovative ways to encourage a productive workforce. Working employees to exhaustion is harmful to their mental health, productivity and creativity.<\/p>\n A balance where a level of accountability is imposed to incentivise productivity and output\/outcome-based delivery is required.<\/p>\n \u2018Young professionals and workers, in general, are facing multiple pressures that affect productivity. The high cost of living, daily commutes and family responsibilities leave workers in a constant state of exhaustion, meaning a lot of them are not working at 100% capacity,\u201d said Nwaneri.<\/p>\n Allowing workers an extra day to gather themselves, rest and catch up on other aspects of their lives has already been proven to create better, happier workers in other countries.<\/p>\n Over the past three-and-a-half months in the UK, 88% of the 3000 participants in the UK say they have managed to keep the same productivity level as the longer work week, according to Singularity Hub.<\/p>\n UK progress<\/strong><\/p>\n At just over the halfway point of a groundbreaking six-month trial of a four-day week pilot programme in the United Kingdom, data points and qualitative feedback are flowing in.<\/p>\n The indicative research being gathered by 4 Day Week Global reveals a general tenor of positive experiences alongside valuable lessons for some organisations that are striving to change decades of ingrained work cultures and systems.<\/p>\n More than 70 organisations signed up for the six-month trial, which began in June and is being run by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with leading think tank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week UK Campaign, and researchers at Cambridge University, Boston College and Oxford University.<\/p>\n More than 3,300 employees are getting a paid day off weekly through the course of the trial.<\/p>\n 4 Day Week Global CEO Joe O\u2019Connor said: \u201cWe are learning that for many it is a fairly smooth transition and for some, there are some understandable hurdles \u2013 especially among those which have comparatively fixed or inflexible practices, systems, or cultures which date back well into the last century.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile for most organisations, the pilot prompts many pleasing discoveries and outcomes \u2013 a lot of businesses have more flexibility and nimbleness among their people and teams that leaders often know at the outset \u2013 there is friction for others, and this can be based on a variety of factors, many of which can be addressed or substantially improved in the pilot itself.”<\/p>\n A plurality of views and diversity of approaches to the pilot is evident among respondents to a brief internal check-in survey of the participating companies undertaken around the pilot\u2019s halfway point. A series of questions were posed with a multi-choice answer on a scale of 1 to 5.<\/p>\n Of those that responded:<\/p>\n Globally, small companies to large corporates in diverse sectors have boldly embraced the productivity-focused, reduced-hour model of work with the support of 4 Day Week Global, as pilot programmes also roll out in North America, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand in 2022.<\/p>\n\n
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