{"id":711154,"date":"2023-08-19T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-19T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=711154"},"modified":"2023-08-18T17:17:28","modified_gmt":"2023-08-18T15:17:28","slug":"first-4-day-workweek-pilot-in-south-africa-is-coming-to-an-end-revealing-some-teething-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/711154\/first-4-day-workweek-pilot-in-south-africa-is-coming-to-an-end-revealing-some-teething-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"4-day workweek pilot in South Africa is ending &#8211; revealing some big issues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The first 4-day workweek pilot, which started on 1 March 2023, is coming to an end this month, and four-day week SA has noted some unique challenges faced by South African companies, which weren&#8217;t evident among its global peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s the country\u2019s first-ever trial of the four-day week. The model prescribes 100% of the pay for 80% of the time in exchange for a commitment to delivering 100% of the output. 28&nbsp;South African businesses and one Botswanan business&nbsp;participated in this first pilot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These businesses included tax and finance services, marketing agencies, employment services companies, and IT software companies, among others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trials have been conducted in several counties, such as the UK, New Zealand and Japan, with the consensus being that there is a positive association between the 4-day workweek and improved employee morale, reduced burnout and maintained, or possibly increased, productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This has partly been the case for the South African pilot as it reaches its end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Director of 4 Day Week SA, Karen Lowe, noted that some of the early positives that these pilot companies have experienced as a result of the 4-day workweek model are: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Reduced stress and burnout;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reduced negative sentiment towards work;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lower instances of family conflicts at home;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reduced staff attrition and turnover; and<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Less sick days taken with lower staff absenteeism.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The pilot&#8217;s well-being metrics are off the charts, and this is despite the various socio-economic challenges faced by South Africans in the country in the first half of 2023,&#8221; she said in an interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0wRtXjt64vU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">eNCA<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, she added that it hasn&#8217;t been without its challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>South African companies are not as progressive as their global counterparts regarding the ability to reduce their weekly working hours by 20%, and some have found it a challenge.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;What we are finding with the South African companies is that they are managing around a 12% reduction in the work week for 100% of productivity, while others have been able to creep towards the 20% mark,&#8221; said Lowe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The pilot has found that South African companies are not taking the reduced work hours by taking off the conventional Friday or a Monday off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They have been more creative in approaching the 20% work hours reduction by choosing to take Wednesdays off, fortnightlies (day off every two weeks), or structuring the time off through two half days,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alternatively, she added, some companies have taken the weekly hour target of 32 hours and structured office hours throughout the week to make up the 20% reduction \u2013 meaning, while they work Monday to Friday, they&#8217;ve shortened the office hours per day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, Lowe said that many South African companies couldn&#8217;t continue with the model when public holidays were added into the mix, which was noted in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She explained that the companies found that they couldn&#8217;t manage the workload needed to be done over the month, with hours being reduced to fit in with the pilot combined with the time taken off for public holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;April was essentially a reset month, as businesses couldn&#8217;t cope with the intensity of the workload and decided not to take the 4-day workweek in addition to the public holidays,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was particularly evident in the online service and communication companies participating in the trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the challenges in reducing the workweek hours for the same level of productivity, Lowe noted that early indications are that 94% of the 29 companies that took part in the pilot intend to continue the 4-day workweek model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lowe added that a second pilot would kick off in September, shortly after completing the first at the end of August 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/710452\/good-news-for-salary-increases-in-south-africa\/\">Good news for salary increases in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite positive sentiments towards the 4-day workweek, early indicators from the first pilot in South Africa show that companies face some challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":703945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[18378,7472,853],"class_list":["post-711154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-4-day-workweek","tag-enca","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711154"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":712292,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711154\/revisions\/712292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}