Five-day work week has no future

Most employees don’t need to work five days a week to do their jobs, according to a survey just published jointly by the Workforce Institute at Kronos and Future Workplace, prominent HR think tanks.

In the survey, 45 percent of the people who responded said that they can get their daily work done in less than five hours if they’re not interrupted. Almost three-quarters said they would do their jobs in four days a week or fewer if their pay remained the same.

Of the 3,000 workers surveyed across eight countries, 40 percent said they lose at least an hour a day to administrative drudgery and 86 percent said they’re roped into tasks unrelated to their core jobs. Meetings, dealing with e-mails, and resolving customer issues also are significant time-eaters, the survey reported.

TRENDPOST

Telecommuting and hiring freelance specialists from the gig economy are ways to make better use of workers’ time and company resources. As companies struggle to survive in a turbulent, competitive, and ever-changing economy, conventions such as the five-day work week are fading, being replaced by more fluid, flexible arrangements.