Yahoo Finance ‘A long weekend, every week’: Belgium ushers in 4-day week
In a deal struck earlier this week to overhaul Belgium’s labour laws, employees will be able to work 10 hours a day rather than eight.
It means Belgians can cull a day from their working week and still take home the same pay.
The fate of the four-day week hinges on the trade unions agreeing to the arrangement.
Also read: 2,500 people worked four-day weeks: Here’s what happened
Also read: What is stopping employers from introducing four-day weeks?
The reforms also introduced the “right to disconnect” after hours - something the French have had for a while - and new reforms for gig-economy workers to treat them more like employees rather than independent contractors.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said the pandemic had fundamentally changed the way people worked and that labour regulations needed updating to enable more flexibility.
4-day week in Australia?
The four-day week has captured the imaginations of burnt-out workers across the globe, including Australia.
In fact, some private companies operating in Australia are already offering the four-day week as a carrot to attract and retain high performers in the war for talent.
Debt-recovery fintech InDebted is one of them. It launched its four-day work week policy in October in a bid to attract high performers and generally improve the lives of its workforce.
CEO and founder Josh Foreman told Yahoo Finance that since introducing the policy, employee engagement was at an all-time high.
“In our January pulse check survey, 97 per cent of employees agree that the four-day work week positively impacts their well-being, and 97 per cent recommend InDebted as a great place to work,” Foreman said.
He added that 91 per cent of employees strongly agreed or agreed that the flexible work policy positively impacted on their productivity, while 93 per cent said working at the company motivated them to perform better than they would elsewhere.
"There’s so much more to life than work - our four-day work week recognises that, supporting people to perform at their best in four days, with a three-day weekend to rest or focus on what’s important to them,” Foreman said.
“This doesn't mean working longer hours within four days, and there's no change to pay or employment conditions. Just a long weekend, every week.”
The policy has also helped the company hire good talent.
“Our average number of applicants has increased by 283 per cent, and in some departments, it's over 700 per cent,” Foreman said.
4-day week around the world
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made headlines in 2020 when she suggested such a policy would get more people travelling and boost the local tourism industry that was suffering from the pandemic.
The four-day work week has also been trialled in several other countries, with promising results.
A study of 2,500 workers in Iceland found people maintained the same productivity and improved their well-being when working four days instead of five.
The experiment found workers were incentivised to get more done with less by changing schedules, cutting meetings short and overhauling communications.
Follow Yahoo Finance on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter, and subscribe to the free Fully Briefed daily newsletter.
