How does a 4-day work week work in Singapore?
Hybrid work arrangements have been gained significant traction in recent ears, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing demand for improved work-life balance among employees.
Countries such as Belgium and Iceland have already implemented a 4-day work week, and several companies in Singapore have successfully adopted similar initiatives.
What can we learn from businesses that have started to embrace this new way of working?
#work #productivity #worklifebalance
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Video transcript
RONALD GOH: Is the four day workweek viable in Singapore? I'm Ronald Goh, a content producer for Yahoo Southeast Asia. And in today's episode, we're uncovering whether flexible work arrangements work in Singapore.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, hybrid work models have been all of the bus. As of today, 10 countries are practicing the four day workweek with nine trying it out. How are companies in Singapore adopting flexible work arrangements?
We spoke with Mad Hat Asia, a PR agency that recently implemented mad long weekends in which to get every last Friday of the month off. The agency also intends to expand this initiative bi-weekly in the second half of this year.
DANIELLE CHOW: When we first floated the idea up, it was off the back of generally a global trend of having a four day work week be implemented. It led to better productivity, more efficiency, more effectiveness or the buzzword that's bandied around. So we thought, OK, let's just give it a shot as well.
And also, speaking to everybody on the team, we realized that weekend, it doesn't feel like a weekend. Between your errands or everything else that you're supposed to do, getting enough rest, that kind of thing-- it's just gone. Two days are just gone. It just feels like you've not had any rest.
NADHIRAH SALEMI: The extra day actually helps me go into the weekend better as opposed to just two days where I'm just in and out and I'm back to work, and just to stay in a bit longer, relax. So coming back to work after the long weekend actually gets me more energized.
DANIELLE CHOW: I think they really like it. I think they're having fun with it. They come back and they're fresher, they're more alert, they're more energetic, they're definitely more productive. I can see that the work output has increased and the quality of work that has been produced has also been a very high quality, very high standard. So I'm glad.
When we first floated this idea out, there were a lot of anxieties as you can imagine like am I going to be able to finish all my work in time, will I have to overload or OT during the four days to catch up on the work, how are clients are going to respond to this. And I can imagine that these anxieties are going to be indicative of whatever the larger general Singaporean population will say. And I also do think that it is industry specific, it's client specific.
If you feel that you can, why not give it a try? If you feel like you cannot, that's fair too. Not everybody feels that that's something that's implementable in their life as much as they would like to.
RONALD GOH: We have seen Mad Hat's approach in an agency setting. How about industries that require shift work? We spoke with a dental clinic which traditionally has longer hours adopt a four day workweek since 2021. DP dental employees can opt for four day work week with two longer days.
LOUISA LEE: One of the pros is really that we started to attract some people who otherwise would not have even been considering working-- the young moms, especially the ones with young children. And we have some people on a four day workweek, some are on four and 1/2, and some are on five. It really is quite a scheduling nightmare for my operations team.
We take on the challenge because we realize that when we actually personalize this kind of arrangement with our team, we do then end up with a possibility of them staying longer with us. As you know, training a new team member from scratch is always difficult. And if that person just leaves after a short one or two years, the whole process again is a very expensive process for a business.
CHARLENE TAY: I'll say that I've became more happier in a sense because there's definitely-- there's work life balance. So I have more time spent on my family. And then not only that, this arrangement actually gave me the opportunity to actually upgrade myself also. So currently, I'm not only working full time. I'm also studying part time and also taking additional courses.
And then I'm also quite active in volunteering work like community service. Definitely, I'm more productive because I have additional off day, means that I have more rest. So I can recharge. And then the next day, I'll be more refreshed to actually start work. I feel that I can deliver better service to my patients.
RONALD GOH: So do you think a four day workweek would work in Singapore? Share your thoughts with us. If you like content like this, check out these videos here.
