Revolutionary idea or regrettable failure? What are the chances of a four-day work week in Romania?

The UK, Germany, Spain and other countries should switch from a five-day workweek to a four-day one. This is to help the economy recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, they say left-wing politicians and European union leaders have written a letter to both British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Germany’s Angela Merkel, as well as other leaders, writes “The Guardian.”

The document refers to the fact that workers have agreed throughout history to work fewer hours to save jobs, but also highlights the “opportunity” offered by this period of crisis, to rethink job opportunity patterns that could also contribute to reduce energy consumption and combat the climate crisis.

“Shorter working hours have been used in times of crisis and economic recession as a way to distribute work more equitably among the unemployed and the overworked,” the letter argues. “To take a step towards civilization and a better society, now is the time to take advantage of the situation and move to less working hours, without loss of salary,” according to the same source.

“The Covid-19 pandemic blew up the world of work”

The proposal to work four days a week has in recent years aroused the interest of a small but growing number of companies who claim that productivity has both increased and improved the mental health of workers. Strong opposition comes from industrialists, who say that imposing a four-day work week would be “a step in the wrong direction.”

Joe Ryle, a British “four-day work week” activist, says: “The Covid-19 pandemic has blown up the world of work, providing a much-needed opportunity to rethink how we work. The four-day work week has become a trend and now it is up to governments, employers and unions to work together to make it a reality ”.

Lorraine Gray, COO, is an example of a Glasgow entrepreneur who spent four weeks working at her digital marketing and phone company. She says that in the two years that employees started being off on Friday, with no pay cuts or other benefits, productivity has increased dramatically by 29.5%. The move also led to higher employee satisfaction and health. Now the company expects revenue to increase from £ 5 million in June 2019 to £ 15 million in the next financial year. “It’s about creating a truly motivating work culture,” Gray said.

Call center companies tend to have high staff turnover and high hiring costs, but of Gray’s 130 employees, only two left work last year, he said. Initially, the company was plagued by skepticism from customers, especially “old-fashioned” customers, but after proving its success, it intends to test it outside the UK, the US and Malaga, southern Spain.

Better work-life balance

Although some fear that less work while maintaining salary benefits leads to bankruptcy, in fact it has been shown that, paradoxically, each time the number of hours worked in a week has been reduced, productivity has not decreased, on the contrary. “So it was not a negative impact on economic production,” stresses economic analyst Dragoş Cabat.

No state has implemented the four-day work week so far, but companies in the UK, Germany and the Nordic countries have done so, and not without positive results, the specialist adds. “The idea of ​​moving to a four-day work week is an old idea, but at the same time modern. It is a leftist idea in the sense that it refers to the conditions of ordinary people, but it is by no means an idea Socialist or communist, far from it. Let’s not forget that people initially worked six days a week, then five, then the number of hours worked per day decreased and now the idea of ​​working four days a week has arisen. developed, people do not work eight hours a day for some time, but seven hours, “he adds.

The specialist also says that it seems to him a more viable method to reduce the number of hours of work per day, from eight to six hours, than working for four days, but that each has its advantages and disadvantages. “The great advantage of the four-day work week is that people can have more free time to spend with their families. And the GDP of those countries may even increase, because on the long weekend people will go more on vacation and it will spend more ”, points out the economic analyst.

In any case, the first step to change the work model has been taken in most European countries with the introduction of teleworking. Before the pandemic, few employers would have accepted that their workers work from home, Dragos Cabat notes. However, the model turned out to be a perfectly functional one: “The pandemic has shown that it can work just as well, maybe better at home and even more.”

Not all domains support this pattern

In some areas, however, the resistance of managers is understandable. In construction, for example, it would be difficult to imagine a reduction in the working week or the number of hours worked. Laurenţiu Plosceanu, President of the Romanian Association of Construction Entrepreneurs, ARACO, explains why: “Construction activity is project oriented. This means that in a period of time, agreed by contract, resources are concentrated. In Romania, the construction activity is affected by the unfavorable time period and this makes it necessary to concentrate mainly on spring, summer, autumn period. It is important to us to work as much as possible in foreseeable weather conditions and it is not a matter of reducing working hours. If reducing to the absurd we thought of reducing work time, the term of execution of the contracts would be lengthened and it is not in the interest of the beneficiary or the construction companies ”.

Dumitru Costin, the head of the National Trade Union Bloc, says Romania’s economy is outdated and does not allow less work. “You cannot do miracles in Romanian industry. In the sense of increasing labor productivity overnight. We have a backward economy, with rudimentary economic activities that require a lot of labor. There is a lot of labor in a factory. wiring for cars or in a garment factory. If the wiring of cars could have been done automatically, they would not have moved them from Germany, Japan to Romania. So we have intensive activities, not those that involve automation. And as a consequence, the Workers’ incomes are low. In order to apply this model of a reduced four-day working week and maintain wages as well, Romania should massively reform the economy. That is, investors come in areas with high added value, which means new technologies , with high productivity. Then, the professional capacity of people to operate with new technology should be increased s. Otherwise, the discussions are meaningless ”, concludes the union leader.

Hope is not completely lost, says Dragoş Cabat. Even if we are behind the developed countries and cannot afford to work less, the evolution of the labor market in pandemic conditions could impose that trend on us, forcing modernization.

30% of companies say that productivity has increased in teleworking

Employee productivity has increased since the implementation of work from home, in approximately 30% of companies that responded to a study by PwC Romania. Another 44% said productivity remained at the same level. Among those surveyed who mentioned the increase in productivity, 76% say that the main factor contributing to this evolution is the increase in time spent working for teleworking.

“The pandemic has shown us that large-scale remote working is feasible and productivity concerns have diminished as companies have addressed the issues of implementing the necessary technologies. Remote working is expected to be applied for more and more. more organizations in the long term, ”said Ionuţ Simion, Country Managing Partner of PwC Romania.

The PwC Romania HR Barometer study was carried out in September-October 2020, in 41 companies, in the sectors: energy, retail / FMCG, pharmaceutical, IT&C, financial services, industry.