In the United States, employees typically work five days a week for eight hours each day. However, many employees want to work a four-day week and are willing to accept less pay inorder to do so. A mandatory policy requiring companies to offer their employees the option of working a four-day workweek for four-fifths (80 percent)of their normal pay would benefit the economy as a whole as well as the individual companies and the employees who decided to take the option. The shortened workweek would increase company profits because employees would feel more rested and alert, and as a result, they would make fewer costly errors in their work. Hiring morestaff to ensure that the same amount of work would be accomplished would not result in additional payroll costs because four-day employees would only be paid 80 percent of the normal rate. …show more content…
For the country as a whole, one of the primary benefits of offering this option to employees is that it would reduce unemployment rates. If many full-time employees started working fewer hours, some of their workload would have to be shifted to others. Thus, for every four employees who went on an 80 percent week, a new employee could be hired at the 80 percent rate. Finally, the option of a four-day workweek would be better for individual employees. Employees who could afford a lower salary in exchange for more free time could improve the quality of their lives by spending the extra time with their families, pursuing private interests, or enjoying leisure
While smaller businesses operating on tighter budgets may find it expensive to pay overtime, the bigger companies with few employees on the managerial positions are capable of paying for overtime for the employees whose category will fall below the minimum exempt. Furthermore, all the options available for employers to handle the proposed rule should it come into effect will still benefit the American worker. One remedy is to follow the law and raise the annual salaries of employees who are overtime-exempt which will motivate workers who are already earning a salary close to that minimum (Rossheim, 2016). The second option is to re-classify workers as no-exempt, a move that would see the workers who are earning below the proposed exempt minimum qualify for overtime pay or reduce the workload for employees so that they only work for 40 hours in a week (Rossheim, 2016). The last option would be to hire more workers and avoid paying overtime which is a good move in providing employment for the unemployed. It is evident that the options available for employers would work towards improving employees’ welfare as well as saving the organization from the challenges of low remuneration.
Well the traditional five days a week is making students feel burnout in a way that student don’t want to even go, especially throughout the school year since it can be so stressful, and it’s not only students but the teachers too! Over a course of time we can start to feel exhaustion because you are constantly putting all your energy into school and you are constantly using your brain, but the four-day school week system will allow students and teachers to get more rest and devote more time and energy into the school days efficiently, creating happier students and teachers. Four days a week can teach us students how to properly manage time. For example, we will soon realize their won’t be time for messing around anymore, class time will be taken much more serious. We’ll have to use our extra day to study and work on homework. This will teach us how we need to use the time provided properly, and we will learn how it's a life lesson for the real world. The four day school system will increase a school's financial stability, if schools take one day out of their week they can save a lot of money within a year. For example, electricity bills, bus fees, school lunches, paying teachers, etc. With the money they saved they can pay teachers more, we can innovate the school, we can do more after school activities, and get new gear for sport teams. In my opinion, that sounds
An increase in the number of vacation days or limiting the hours worked in a week by the government may increase the quality of life by providing more leisure time. However, the overall quality of life would struggle because in this day and age one has to have money to have a good time. Recently after much debate, the French eliminated their 35-hour workweek limit with strong justifiable arguments by both parties. The law was first put in place in 2000 due impart to the unemployment rate that was around 10% at the time. Ideally with shorter workweeks companies would have to hire more employees to maintain current outputs. Although, in recent years it has become apparent that instead of lowering the unemployment rate, it has remained near
Before introducing the workplace issues related to the development of four-day workweek, a clear definition of this schedule is needed. According to Department of Labor (n.d.), “A workweek is a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours, or seven consecutive 24-hour periods. The workweek does not have to coincide with the calendar week, but instead it may begin on any day of the week and at any hour of the day.” It might be the “four-day, 32-hour workweek – more leisure, less work” (Wernette 1), or the “three-day, 40 hour, compressed work week” that Vega
The 4 day work week is not a new idea. It is one that has had its share of controversies over the years. Introduced in the 1970’s the idea of the 4 days work week has been making a comeback as of lately. There are several issues to look at here. One of the main statements in regards to it is that productivity will decrease because of fatigue. A 10 hour work day is too long. On the flipside, another of the main issues pointed out by proponents is that productivity will increase because you will have a workforce with higher morale. In this paper, we will discuss
Working 8 hour shifts should be kept as the norm. The economic cost of six-hour work days is prohibitive. Either workers or employers will be forced to end up paying for it. If it's the workers, then they'll lose two hours of wages each day, and that's about a quarter of their pay. Even though productivity increased with six-hour workdays, so did sickness.
When considering the change from 5 to 4-day workweeks it is important to choose which path the department would like to pursue. The 32-hour 4-day workweek or the 4-day 10-hour workweek. By increasing the workday to 10 hours a day, there may be a need for more breaks within one day. This can be done and worked through, but will cause a problem if employee and employer don't agree.
Imagine everything you do in a normal day at your job, now imagine everything you do with two-hours less time to do all of your work. It would be rather difficult don't you think? Workers would have to work even harder to get the things that needs to be done completed. Many workers would feel more wore out than the usual, and would get paid less for doing everything they could do more efficently in eight-hour time frame.
I beleive that a 6 hour work day, while better for the mental health of the workers, will be detrimental to the working class in many ways. If they are working less hours they will have more time to spend with their families but they will more than likely end up having to get a second job to make up for the wage loss from the 2 hours a day cut. Most middle class American's live paycheck to paycheck and not receiving the amount they depend on would risk the ruination of thier lifestyle.
the average work week would be reduced to between fifteen and twenty hours a week by the
I think that the six hour work is a ok idea but i would prefer to work eight hours or more. Sure the six hours will give you more time off and could increase productivity, but it will decrease pay. The original eleven to twelve hours a day during the Industrial revolution was a bit much, it is great that the time was set back and the pay doubled. That was a great way to motivate the workers to do more as well as give them more energy. But dropping the hours to six a day will just start to make the employees lazy and work less on the job.
A six hour workday should become a standard in the United States because it increases productivity and it has been shown to work in other countries.
If the choice of eight-hour workdays or six-hour days were up to me I would have to say six-hour days are better for the United States. Ive looked very closely at the reasons why it would be better such as more productivity, less time spent in the office, and less distractions due to focus on the tasks. If we keep our normal work hours less will get accomplished due to people taking breaks and slacking off. There are downsides to this change in time such as more people being sick due to fatigue and to much stress, less pay due to hours being cut, and the more people missing work the more you will have to pay to get a replacement. These are all great points but the American people can push through anything to make things better for everyone.
By having flexible work schedules you are giving employees more control of their jobs. For example, nursing has gone from 8 hour shifts to 12 hour shifts. By working 3 twelve hour shifts a
Having worked as a full-time supervisor at my job has given me the experience and ability to observe the people I work with prefer shorter work days. As a result, I would schedule part time hours, five to six hour shifts, for my employees who not only wanted these shorter shifts, but would directly ask me to work shorter shifts. I have seen that when the employees work shorter days, they are pleased to be at work, focus better, and complete tasks in a timely manner. As opposed to when I had scheduled them for a regular eight hour day, they would dread the work day, spend their focus on counting down the hours until they could go home, and would bring with them a sluggish and negative mood which would hinder not only their experience at work, but would also resonate in their interactions with customers.