ENG 190 Essay Final Draft

.docx

School

Southern New Hampshire University *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

190

Subject

English

Date

Apr 3, 2024

Type

docx

Pages

Uploaded by DrShark4093

Tori Hart Professor Joy Holster ENG 190 5 February 2024 Project Part Two: Persuasive Essay with Research Recently, the topic of four-day work weeks has forced us to consider some difficult questions, including if a change like this is worthwhile as well as whether a change like this would actually be beneficial to society. Historically, the answers to these questions were simpler because working five days out of the week was simply considered the norm. However, since the advent of the idea of working less days throughout the week, we have seen changes in the opinions and factual data surrounding the enforcement of four-day work weeks. This has forced businessowners to grapple whether employees working only four days out of the week would benefit a society, to include not only employees, but business owners themselves, as well as customers/consumers. Four-day work weeks prove themselves to lack benefit in multiple ways. Four-day work weeks pose a high risk of business owners experiencing a decrease, or major decline in revenue by losing clientele. Customers would suffer because four-day work weeks limit their availability to products and/or services to only four days out of the week instead of five. Employees ultimately would also be impacted in a negative way because it will come down to them either having to work longer hours each day in order to maintain the same salary or enduring a pay cut due to not working the same number of hours throughout the week.

Businessowners could be negatively impacted by four-day work weeks because company production would be reduced. Minimizing the normal weekly work schedule from five days to four days means less time that employees are at work or in office. Reducing workflow translates to a loss in revenue, because of an eight-hour loss in production time. Less working time for employees simply means less money being made for a franchise. In her article, Knowledge Bylanes emphasizes the translation of less working time into less money being made. Bylanes noted that an employee not being present on a regular workday could have a negative impact “if your customers have frequent communication with your staff and expect them to be available five days a week” (Bylanes). Maintaining a five-day work week would alleviate any and all stress of businessowners losing money within their franchise from decrease in productivity and/or decrease in sales from losing customers. While some may argue that a decrease in production may just be a “start-up issue” while employees adjust to the new shortened work schedule, Kenneth Wheeler understands that may not be the case. Wheeler mentions how companies that work on a round-the-clock, seven-day-a-week basis indeed are likely to even find it “necessary to add staff, and this may or may not be advantageous to management and productivity” (Wheeler 146). While increasing staff, companies will also have to factor in that they are building the roster that is being put on payroll. In other words, they are now spending more money to hire new employees. This could have a negative or even standstill effect on revenue, if those newly hired employees are still not able to meet management’s production goals/requirements. Customers could suffer from four-day work weeks by no longer having as much time throughout the week to have access to the products, sources, or services they need from a company. Some may see it as an easy fix by saying customers can simply plan to get their

products and/or services within those four business days however, that solution may not work for every circumstance or customer. Many businesses work closely with their customers and their success is based off of the relationship they have with their customers. Building and maintaining a great business to customer relationship requires being able to keep the customer satisfied and fulfill their needs/desires. Bylanes briefly touches on this and notes that “having an employee who is unavailable Monday or Friday could cause problems” (Bylanes), this is because losing that strong source of service or supply may affect whether a customer wants to continue to do business with that company. It would be more beneficial for the customer to seek service from a business whose schedule works well with theirs and has no issue supplying them five days out of the week instead of four. Building a strong, consistent relationship with customers would require keeping products and services available to them. For some consumers, each of those five working days throughout the week are vital for them and their own business as well. It would be inconsiderate and borderline selfish not to take this into consideration when contemplating making a change as big as altering the five-day work week to just four days of the week. Most employees may initially jump at the idea of working four days a week instead of five, thinking it will make their lives much easier. Employees typically don’t consider the ways in which they would be sold short in a scenario such as this. Four-day work weeks could have a negative impact by changing either the number of hours an employee is expected to work each day or the amount of money an employee will make each pay period. For reference, Beglgium’s four-day model “has employees doing 40 hours a week, spread over four days. As an alternative, they can reduce their number of working hours, which translates into less pay” (SyndiGate). In order to facilitate four-day work weeks employees would either have to work more hours each day or endure a pay cut from their normal wage or salary. Some may argue that having that extra

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help