La storia con il testo
PresenterThis morning we're asking: would a four-day week work for you? Our first caller is Rachel. Rachel, your company switched last year, didn't it?
RachelThat's right. I work for a small marketing agency, and we moved to four days with no cut in pay. Honestly, I was sceptical. I thought we'd just cram five days of work into four and end up exhausted.
PresenterAnd did you?
RachelFor the first few weeks, a little. But then we changed how we worked. We cut most internal meetings to fifteen minutes, and we stopped answering messages instantly. Our productivity actually went up, and nobody has left the company since we changed.
PresenterFantastic. Let's go to our second caller, Mark, who has a rather different story.
MarkHi. I run a café, and we tried a four-day week for the staff, but the café still has to be open six days. So it meant hiring two extra people, and our costs went up by about twenty percent. In the end we couldn't afford it.
PresenterSo it depends on the type of business?
MarkAbsolutely. In an office, you can reorganise the work. When customers are standing at the counter, you can't serve them faster just because you've had a meeting about it.
PresenterA good point. Rachel, any final thoughts?
RachelOnly that Mark's right: it isn't one-size-fits-all. But I think more companies could try it than actually do.
