The four-day work week trend spins back into the mainstream
By Johan Botes, Partner and Head of the Employment & Compensation Practice, Baker McKenzie Johannesburg
The four-day work week is nothing new. Reading about its anticipated return is akin to getting a letter from an old friend who disappointed you long ago and then disappeared, but for whom you still have fond feelings. Like yo-yos and hula hoops, the four-day work week has excited generations, with the notion fading over time and becoming trendy again once those who were infatuated with the idea had long forgotten about the frustration of replicating moves made to look so simple by a select few.
Two global oil companies were first documented cases of companies adopting the four-day work week, back in 1940. Their drivers worked a schedule that saw them working 40 hours in four days (...