The new week – 5 on, 5 off

Solving problems often takes a completely new viewpoint over what the problem actually is. There have been many recent studies and trials of working weeks durations, including a successful trial at Microsoft for a 4-day week that increased productivity. However, I have a different idea to solve the problem: changing the weekends from 2 days to 5. This would make the new week of 5 on, 5 off and give a 5 day weekend.

The weekends are too short, I think we can all agree on that! The problem is that we have two days to do everything – relax, complete chores, go shopping for food, spend money on recreation, attend events and concerts – the list goes on. This also means that there is a large proportion of the workforce that need to work during the weekends to service the office workers and those who do the 9-5. When do the weekend workers get time to do their shopping and spend money on events?

The 4 day work week trial

There have been multiple experiments with the concept of a 4 day work week, with the same pay as a full 5 day work week – and all have shown success. Increased staff satisfaction, increased productivity, fewer meetings, better mental health outcomes – and there could be more. The extensive trial in the UK from June to November of 2022 will show if this is limited to benefits for one isolated company at a time, or if it can be a systemic change that can benefit society as a whole. More companies can join the trial too.

However, I think that the issue is not the length of the work week, but instead the shortness of the weekend. If the weekend was 5 days, it could have additional benefits.

The 5 day weekend

Taking the approach of a 5 day work week, and a 5 day off-work week – this could enable society to continue to operate without the break of a weekend existing. Shopping could be spread over the week without everyone rushing to make their purchases in one day, and staff who work in retail could spend their money on shopping on their off-work week. Businesses could continue to operate all year round, with projects and productivity continuing without a 2 day interruption. People would be able to travel and engage in longer recreational activities – spending more into the economy and allowing both spending and earning to be spread over a 10 day period.

52 weeks to 36 weeks, 365 days cycling per year

In this new structure, each person would work alternate 5 day weeks in a 73 week year, in a week-on, week-off basis – half the workforce in each group, working for 36 weeks, and non-working for another 36 weeks. As the year progresses, this cycle means that from year to year their working week will move so that they are not, for example, always working at Christmas, or their birthday.

The new “Dan” week would have 5 days;

• Marday
• Tirsday
• Onsday
• Lorsday
• Froday

The benefits will be not only more rest time for people, but also they would spend more money on recreational and retail activities. For business, they can remain operating all year round with no breaks, and cycling through employees as the weeks alternate.

The first day of the week would be Monday for half of the people in the “Nor” week, and the other half of society in the “Nor” week would have Monday as the first day of their 5-day rest/shop/travel period. Then the “Dan” workers would start working on Marday, and the “Nor” workers would start their 5-day non-working time on the Marday.

Unending business operations

The weekend is lost productivity for many businesses, and this structure would allow them to operate continuously, with no 2-day break.

For retail and recreation, they currently try to cram all their business into two days a week (the weekend), and this new structure would allow them to operate continuously, and the staff who work in those industries would also have the opportunity to spend money within the retail and recreation sectors.

This is something business first learned a long time ago. In the 19th century, when organized labor first compelled factory owners to limit workdays to 10 (and then eight) hours, management was surprised to discover that output actually increased – and that expensive mistakes and accidents decreased. 

https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-research-is-clear-long-hours-backfire-for-people-and-for-companies