The New 9–5

With the ‘Great Resignation’ looming, businesses are facing a fight to keep their employees. The solution? The four-day work week, of course.

Is it just me or is the timing of the UK’s sudden interest in trialling a four-day week a bit suspicious… People have been repeating the loop of burnout and breaking point for years. It’s only now that news has spread that Millennials and Gen Z are planning to quit their jobs that businesses are shaking a leg to find a solution.

A survey conducted by recruitment firm, Randstad UK, found that 24% of workers were planning to leave their jobs in the next 3–6 months, with 69% feeling confident that they would find a new role. If 30% aren’t as confident that they’ll find a new job but are still planning to leave, that’s a pretty telling sign that people are fed up with the rat race, right?

It’s no longer enough to offer free food, company away days and hybrid working. Millennials and the older end of Gen Z are ditching traditional 9–5s to pursue their passions, and move to roles with higher pay or a better work-life balance. The prioritisation of wellbeing is spurring people to leave stable, steady incomes to see if they can make their dreams work, rather than stay in a role where they feel unfulfilled and undervalued.

If the generation that populates the majority of the workforce are resigning, traditional ‘office job’ industries will face a severe struggle to entice employees into their workplaces. These businesses are scrambling for a solution to a problem they were ill-prepared for and they might have found the answer: The four-day work week.

This compressed work schedule has already seen success across the Globe. When Microsoft Japan tested a four-day work week in 2019, productivity boosted by 40%. Researchers in Iceland also observed that a four-day work week without a pay cut boosted productivity. Though our intuition might encourage us to think of a four-day work week as a productivity killer, these real life examples show that it’s all about working smarter, not harder, and focusing on output rather than hours.

Surely this is a big fat green light for an immediate shift to this new way of working? Sadly not. Though the number of UK managers implementing a four-day work week has increased from 5% in February 2021 to 7% as of January 2022, it’s a miniscule slice of the labour force that will receive the benefit of a reduced work week. Whilst it seems like we’ll have to save the champagne and streamers for now, perhaps there’s a glimmer of hope for more widespread change in 2023.

But would such a pivot from the typical work week even be enough to draw people back to traditional office jobs? It’s not so much a ‘Great Resignation’ as it is a ‘Great Reshuffle’. Millennials and Gen Z aren’t just quitting their jobs to sit around scrolling through socials all day. There are many reasons behind their mass resignation, from poor treatment and passion pursuing, to salary searching. Yes, lots of people are resigning but they’re not actually leaving the workforce. They’re seeking jobs that allow them to prioritise their wellbeing and redefine their careers.

With mental health and work-life balance at the forefront of employees priorities, it seems that we’re in for a complete reimagining of what ‘work’ looks like and how much autonomy people have in their careers. I for one, am excited to see how this pans out.