We should transition to a four day public school and work week. Transitioning would create better productivity, more efficient usage of time, employee satisfaction, team building, lower unemployment rate, environment benefits, fewer overhead costs, and more productivity innovations. Some of the reasons why we should transition is for those working parents who could use the extra day to take care for their kids and people will be able to get the same amount of work done in 32 hours instead of 40 hours because of a increase of productivity.

For years the four day work week was ahead of its time but now it is getting consider among firms. For example in Europe they are already experimenting and implementing shorter work week in varying degrees. In March and April there was a study in New Zealand at a firm called The Perpetual Guardian estate management which ran an experiment that reduce their work week from 40 hours to 32 hours and with that they hired researches to record results which showed positive support for this transition. And having a extra day off motivated the employees to meet productivity requirements. Jarrod Haar states “their actual job performance didn’t change when doing it over four days instead of five” (Ellis-Zapier, Matt).

According to the visual of “The 4-Day Work Week: Stats On The …”  there are some unhealthy impacts of working more than a average person should work which are nearly 2.5 times more likely to develop depression, and over 60% more likely to develop heart related illnesses, about 40% of Americans say that their job is very or extremely stressful. High stress levels can lead or exacerbate health problems such as muscle and joint pain, weakened immune system, obesity, and sleep problems.

A shorter work week can be good for people, the planet and economy. Jason Fried matters because he is a CEO of Basecamp that reported that the 32 hour, four day work week his company follows from May through October has resulted in an increase in productivity (Jason Fried).

Doing this transition may reduce the amount of time employees need to take off for personal needs, employees may be more able to see a doctor if they’re feeling ill, and productivity may increase. Other things could also have employees be less stressed, likely to suffer burnouts, more relaxed, more time for activities like exercise, to get misc, household chores done on that extra day off, may be able to be used as a recruiting tool, and a four day work week could also be major factor in employee retention. Bridget Miller claims that articles about the New Zealand had good results which got companies around the world wondering if this is an anomaly or whether they too might find some benefit in changing the way employees are expected to work (Miller, Bridget). According to both Jason Fried a CEO and Bridget Miller aadvisor, they show concerned about health which is showing they care about their employees.

Matt Ellis-Zapier is both right and wrong that not all industries can participate and there might be un-utilized labor however those who can participate could help those who can’t in anyway they can and for the un-utilized labor there are jobs out in the world right now where they aren’t doing a lot of labor but still working the 40 hours. Transitioning to a four day public school and work week would not change the length of months we go to school which is mid-August to early-June. It will change the amount of breaks we have whereas right now we have two weeks off for winter break and one week off for spring break. For the winter break we would have one week instead of two weeks and for spring break we would keep it the same as of now. We would still have all the holidays off and adding Monday off.

For those who may oppose this proposal like “would we be in school longer?”, I would say no it will be the same amount just having one week off instead of two for winter break. Spring break will still be the same amount as of now. We will also still have the holidays off that we do have now. Once students get into high school some of us schools have a late start Monday where we go in about a hour later than usual but then our rest of the week we go in at the regular time frame which for me is 8:15 am. On Mondays, we start at 9:45 am and throughout the week we get out at 2:55 pm everyday.

For those parents to have a four day work week it will help their scheduling, productivity, and ethics. I feel that for this proposal we could at least do a whole year around the world trial because there was some place that already did a trial of a four day work week like New Zealand. We should transition to a four day public school and work week.