In the thick of the second ruthless wave of Covid-19 in India a lot of companies implemented a 4-day workweek. This was prompted by a vast number of employees in various sectors experiencing burnout and, in general, the pandemic taking a negative toll on people’s mental health. According to Microsoft’s October 2020 Work Trend Index report, approximately one-third of workers in India cited increased rates of burnout in the crucial months of the lockdown.
“Burnout includes disillusionment with the response to stressful situations. Indecision, withdrawal, mental arguments, anger outbursts and lack of sense of accomplishment besides moral injury…these are a few well-recognised phenomena where the person may feel guilty for having to work against their personal code of conduct. Some of these features show signs of depression, low mood, helplessness and hopelessness. In this situation, organisations need to become points of delivery for mental health services. But solutions are sometimes ‘tokenistic’ and restricted to some events around mental health” says Achal Bhagat, senior consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist at Apollo Hospitals, and chairperson of Saarthak, a mental health organisation in Delhi.
Reducing work hours seemed like an obvious solution to this problem that was plaguing us. Furthermore, the concept of burnout has been one that has impacted working professionals since the early 19th century. It feels like a modern concept as it has been accentuated by the changes prompted by the pandemic.
One such change is working from home. Many would agree with me when I say that this change in particular has resulted in the blurring of many professional boundaries. When you work from an office, it is easier to compartmentalise the different facets of your life. One can easily clock in and clock out when their working hours are over. However, when you work from home, all the different elements of your life bleed into one another. The clearly drawn boundaries and expectations of one’s job slowly morphs into ill-defined expectations leading to great volumes of work, as a result of this change. As the volume surges beyond a certain point, the lack of control over your work life becomes unbearably stressful.
A recent research in Iceland that studied 2500 participants revealed that workers felt they had higher levels of energy and their stress levels drastically reduced when they tried a four-day workweek. Reduced work hours meant they had more time to partake in social activities, hobbies and gained flexibility in completing their domestic chores.
“Over the years, some of the corporate practices by Indian HR departments have negatively influenced the average Indian employee. The implicit assumption has always been that a minimum number of work hours is essential to achieve desired business outcomes. Policy inflexibility has prompted the workforce to focus on checking the box for the number of hours spent at work rather than on the consistency in achieving optimum productivity whilst at work. The nature of one’s work responsibilities considered, incentivizing employees with the autonomy to plan their work week by shortening the work week is a win for both the business and the employee,” said Aditya Vishvak Sundaram, Manager of Corporate Growth at BookMyShow.
To further supplement the argument that a 4-day work week would be beneficial, Jaya Balachandran, Vice President, BNY Mellon India weighed in by saying “I think introducing a 4-day work week would encourage people to have a healthier work life balance which is particularly amiss in India’s corporate culture. The key to a fulfilling professional life lies in working smartly which does not require laborious days of working around 12 hours.”
Many versions of the “new norm” have been adopted and trialed but reducing work hours was arguably the most beneficial modification of what we knew as the norm. “Normal” clearly was not working. It is time we re-assessed the fast-paced sinkhole that the modern work culture has become and embrace the benefits of slow productivity.
Words by Anithya Balachandran
Cover Image via Spacejoy
