SINGAPORE — While other employees dive straight into work right after a weekend respite, Ms Nabilah Awang spends her Monday mornings exercising, settling some house chores or “just recharging” herself.
Such luxury is made possible by her employer, a commodity price reporting agency, which has implemented a 4.5-day work week, giving her time off from work every Monday morning.
Mr Anand George, a partner at a law firm, said that in litigation, timelines are set by the court, resulting in a “trickle-down effect”. Developments in a case may occasionally crop up that necessitate urgent actions, he added.Mr Anand added that while he could not speak for his firm, his personal view is that implementing a four-day week in his line of work is impractical.
However, he saw his workers’ productivity drop somewhat as they either felt less rested if given staggered off-days, or they would make mistakes, which “always happened when a worker comes back from the long weekend”. On the Government’s part, it was prioritising core issues such as uplifting low-wage workers and job creation, among other things, “given the current economic situation”, the minister had said in a written reply to a parliamentary question by Workers’ Party’s Louis Chua on whether the Government had undertaken a study on shorter work weeks.
Mr Gabriel Nam, a partner at headhunter firm Page Executive, told TODAY this week: “Four-day or 4.5-day work week in theory is always a good and popular thing to do but in reality… it is more complicated than that and there will be a lot of practical and business considerations behind it.” These concerns could indicate that some companies may be more suited than others to implement shorter work weeks, said business and human resource experts.
A separate survey of 1,000 workers here that same month by market research firm Milieu Insight found that 37 per cent wanted a four-day work week “very much”, while another 44 per cent said they “want it, but have a few concerns” Young employees working regular five-day weeks told TODAY recently that they largely welcome the notion of a shorter work week.
“For example, 8am to 7pm — that’s a bit extreme for a day of work that is not factoring in commute timings as well,” he said. Another employee in the public sector who wanted to be known only as Mr Alif said: “I don't think can be so efficient as to cut down five days’ worth of work to four days by just removing ‘fluff’.” He was referring to administrative and smaller tasks that are not part of an employee’s core job.
Senior account manager Krisha Ramos acknowledged that spillover work is a given in the industry, and it does not diminish the joy she derives from the long weekends. Panasonic, another multinational headquartered in workaholic Japan, introduced an optional four day-work week in early 2022. Besides the straightforward long weekend arrangement in some companies, staff at other firms take the additional day off in a staggered manner to ensure the company’s services continue over five weekdays.
Labour economist Walter Theseira, from the Singapore University of Social Sciences , noted however that the move involved redistributing the hours on Saturday across the weekdays to roughly retain the total number of working hours per week in the civil service. Associate Professor Trevor Yu from Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University, however, said that pandemic-related developments may help Singapore to make further changes to its work practices.
SUSS’ Assoc Prof Theseira also noted how, as it is, companies here tend to be more conservative even in implementing other flexi-work arrangements. Nonetheless, they added that whatever apprehensions employers may have need to be considered against longer term goals. He added that should the trend of shorter work weeks continues and competitors have adopted it, “it can impact the company’s attractiveness to talent” should it be slow to adopt the same practices.Challenges notwithstanding, some companies here have implemented variations of the four-day work week to different degrees and with varying results.
“We also offer ‘Part-Time Work’ scheme through which employees can work fewer days and hours per week for pro-rated pay.” While the company embarked on the work arrangement sometime last year to “boost morale, job satisfaction, and overall retention rates”, it has positively impacted the team's work, she said.
However, the restaurant found it challenging to offer the same arrangement to existing employees without compromising its operations. Still, there are business owners who find it difficult to implement a more flexible or a four-day work week, despite knowing that such arrangements would be good for their employees.
Even the biggest trial of shorter-work week practices in the UK facilitated by 4 Day Week Global saw companies implementing different ways of shortening work hours tailored to their respective operational needs, the experts noted.
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