(Visual China/Photo)
Recently, the UK began to implement the world's largest four-day working system pilot activity. In the UK, 3,300 employees from 70 British companies, from financial service providers to fish and chip restaurants, will participate in the pilot.
In the project, employees' weekly working hours are only 80% of the usual ones, but their income is still the same as before, with the condition that they promise to keep their work efficiency unchanged. As soon as this news came out, it quickly gained widespread attention and discussion on social media platforms.
44-day working system has precedents
In fact, the UK is not the first country to conduct a four-day working system pilot.
As early as 2015, Iceland began two large-scale four-day working-system trials, reducing the weekly working hours from 5 days and 40 hours to 4 days and 35 or 36 hours, but the salary remained the same.
The trial ultimately "had an overwhelming success" and by 2021, about 86% of Icelandic employees had signed labor contracts to shorten working hours.
In addition to Iceland, Spain, New Zealand , Japan and other countries are also piloting a four-day working system.
In New Zealand, fast-moving consumer goods giant Unilever starts to let local offices pilot a four-day working system from the end of 2020, and considers to see if it is worth further promotion through a one-year experiment. The New Zealand Prime Minister also called on businessmen to evaluate the four-day working system, so that people can have more free time to go out to promote the recovery of New Zealand's inland tourism industry.
In Asia, some Japanese companies are also trying the project. Uniqlo 's parent company Fast Retailing Group promotes 40 hours of work in four days, while Yahoo Japan allows employees who need more time to take care of their family to take three days off a week.
The Japanese government said that reducing working days is expected to bring about a diverse working style and prompt new skills to transfer to growth industries such as information technology.
is visible, and there have been many attempts ahead. After the economic development entered a certain stage, many countries are considering and piloting the four-day working system, and trying to break through the old working methods to provide more possibilities for improving the working model.
(Visual China/Photo) Can
only work four days a week?
So, why can you only work four days a week? Perhaps we can observe it from several aspects. First, it is about labor efficiency . From an economics perspective, "the total number of labor output = labor efficiency × labor quantity", then when the number of labor, that is, the number of employees remains unchanged, even if the labor time is reduced but the labor efficiency is improved, it can still ensure that the total number of labor remains unchanged even if the labor time is reduced but the labor efficiency is improved. It can even be improved.
Judging from some current experiments, shortening working hours to a certain extent will not reduce the overall output, and can even increase the output.
such as Microsoft Japan's sales increased by nearly 40% after a month of "Work and Life Choice Challenge". In 2015, when the American Paddle Board Company implemented a five-hour working system, the company's annual revenue also increased by 50%.
In addition, the feedback from Iceland is that people's sense of happiness has improved after shortening their working hours.
Since only working four days a week, many people have more time to spend with their families and children, which makes the parent-child relationship and gender relationship more harmonious, and people's sense of happiness in life has improved. After gaining more sense of security and satisfaction,
can in turn allow people to have more energy, creativity and better emotions to communicate at work, thereby promoting the completion of work performance.
Also, to a certain extent, change the working mode and reduce working hours, and directly reduce the carbon footprint, reducing the high carbon emissions on commuting roads such as subways, buses, and private cars.
OECD 4HD 29 member states found that every 10% reduction in working hours can reduce the ecological footprint, carbon footprint and carbon dioxide emissions by 12.1%, 14.6% and 4.2% respectively. Obviously, the adjustment of working hours is a huge bonus to the ecological environment.
Are we close to the four-day working system
So, are we close to the four-day working system?
Previously, in replying to the NPC representative's suggestions on 's four-and-a-half-day working system , the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security pointed out that "the level of social and economic development in China can be fully considered on the basis of economic development, scientific and technological progress, and improvement of productivity levels, and the level of social and economic development in my country can be fully considered on the basis of economic development, scientific and technological progress, and improvement of productivity levels. And the enterprise's ability to bear, further shorten the statutory working hours of standard. However, it is not advisable to implement the four and a half days working system immediately."
From the current situation of economic development, we are indeed not immediately and completely equivalent to the situation in other developed countries.
First of all, due to the vast land area, there is still a gap between our central and western regions and the coastal economic belts in unbalanced economic development. For regions with relatively low economic scale, multi-pronged approach to increasing GDP is still a priority and is not suitable to rashly reduce working hours.
At the same time, from the perspective of industrial structure, unlike the situation where developed countries mainly focus on scientific and technological research and development, high-end manufacturing or leisure tourism, we are still a country with the advantage of labor-intensive manufacturing. If we reduce working hours immediately, it is possible that because Inadequate start-ups have caused supply chains to tighten exports.
And, with the advent of the aging trend, it may face the current situation of labor shortage in the future, which will affect production capacity.
However, China has been exploring the four-day working system and flexible working methods.
As early as 2013, a professor at Renmin University of China once proposed, "Some Nordic countries work four days a week and rest for three days. According to China's current economic growth rate, even if the economic growth rate is a little lower, if it can be done every year The growth is 6%. After entering the leisure economy era with high material protection in the future, a three-day break system can be implemented. "
In addition, the vice president of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Talent Evaluation and Development Institute of Guangdong University of Finance and Economics has also recently It is pointed out that "some countries have set off a wave of four-day working system. For China, the four-day working system every week is feasible." It can be seen that whether it is the 2.5-day or 3-day holiday model, it has already been Being considered. However, the adjustment of the unified social holiday system is a matter that affects the whole body, and there are many factors that need to be considered.
Some foreign studies have also shown that although the four-day working system has many benefits, it may also cause problems such as increasing work pressure on employees due to shortening the time and requiring the same task, which makes people feel psychologically stressed.
Therefore, multi-faceted investigations or some pilot projects are needed to be more conducive to overall decision-making.
However, with the implementation of national strategies such as big data, big health, rural revitalization, smart elderly care , people's consumption capacity in many industries such as tourism, culture, health, and elderly care can be shortened by working hours or flexible work The way of doing so has been further released or improved, and the industrial structure has been gradually adjusted. The diversification of the working day system is worth looking forward to.
Wang Weixing
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