4-day work week: probably not a bad idea

I have a feeling that the majority of people all over the world would jump on the option of having a 4-day work week rather than what we have now, and is that even a good thing? Because while you get the luxury of having one extra free day, you end up working longer hours. This means where you close for work around 4 PM would now extend to maybe 7 PM. That option might not be suitable for people who have other important engagements to attend to after work hours but as for me, I really don't mind.

Back when I was in the university, I actually experienced something a lot similar to this and it even happened twice; one was when I was in my 3rd year and the other was in my final year. You all know that lectures in the university are based on a schedule (timetable) and sometimes, the way these timetables are structured can be ridiculous. In my 3rd year, we noticed that on 2 different days, we had just one class each, so we made a deal with the lecturers that are in charge of those courses to move them to other days.

Now that meant that we had increased the lecture hours of those other days but in the end, we got 2 days free, which meant we only had to come to school for just days (Monday to Wednesday). The same thing happened in the final year, and everyone in the class unanimously agreed to that choice (including those that already come to school like once a week 😂). In essence, my point is that when It comes to that choice between 5 working days and 4 days with longer working hours, there are a lot more benefits with the 4-day work week. I mean, you will have an entire day to do whatever you want, but one of the downsides is that it gets harder to go back to work on Monday.

Monday is already the most hated day for a lot of workers (and even students) because after chilling and having fun over the weekend, you now have to go back to the same boring daily routine, and that is just 2 days of no work (Saturday and Sunday). And now, adding one more day to it (which will most definitely be Friday) will mean you get to have fun for 3 days and then drag yourself back to work on Monday. This is me just speaking from experience because that was what happened in my 3rd year when we only had to go to school for 3 days, and we had 4 days free to do anything.

Sometimes I even forgot that school isn't on break or anything, because at one point some of us started feeling like we had finished writing exams or even graduated (this one was in our final year) and that's because we got used to the free days but Mondays always come with its reality check. Even at that, I will still prefer to go to work for just 4 days a week, dragging ourselves back to work on Monday is already something many of us are already battling with, so it doesn't make much difference when an extra free day is added. But one thing we aren't even talking about is: will this affect salary?

I know Nigeria doesn't officially work with wage per hour like it's done in the US, where you get paid based on the number of hours you put in, after all the federal minimum wage over there is $7.25 per hour but in Nigeria, we make use of monthly payments. Even at that, some companies scale their salaries based on the number of hours put in per week but I don't think that will be a problem because even if one day is taken off from the work week, the hours will be distributed amongst the remaining 4 days. For example, let's say you're working 8 hours daily (the regular 9 to 5), that means 40 hours per week.

Then when the 4-day week is implemented, the remaining 8 hours will be added to the 4 days (extra 2 hours every day). So, instead of closing around 5 PM, you will now be closing around 7 PM. With that, you're still putting in the required 40 hours per week of work, and there will be no need to readjust the salary. Now that we have taken care of that, another question is; why do companies don't even do this? 🤔 It's actually a great idea because it would mean that workers will have more time for their loved ones and one very important benefit is that it will reduce the transportation expenses of workers, whether they are commuting or driving their own vehicle.

Thanks for reading

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