Individuals’ attitudes towards hard work have drastically changed in recent years: workers are more concerned about their physical and mental well-being than promotions and salaries. Therefore, the majority of employees want to opt for fewer working hours and more leisure time. Indeed, despite the disadvantages of short workweeks, longer weekends should be the new norm in work culture.
Three-day weekends enable workers to arrange short trips to resort towns and strengthen their relationships. Firstly, it is just the perfect number of days for the workers to travel and relax at different places rather than their house. For instance, a weekend trip to the seaside is a great change of scenery that makes their mind more serene and leads to better mental health. Furthermore, this can make the workers have better relationships with their family because they have more time to spend with their family. Specifically, with longer weekends, more family weekends can take place, which allow family members to talk to each other about their problems, their success, or even their failures, all of which lead to stronger bonds.
Nevertheless, longer weekends are likely to negatively affect both business owners and workers. Obviously, with the 4-day workforce taking off Mondays or Fridays in addition to their usual weekends, there will not be adequate coverage for customers. Therefore, firms have to outsource extra staff to meet projects’ deadlines. Otherwise, they will likely fall behind schedules and risk disappointing their regular clients. Another disadvantage of shorter workweeks is intensified. When workloads are condensed into 4 days instead of 5 days, employees are not only faced with immense pressure to finish their projects within the given time, but they are also subject to fatigue from racing the clock to complete their work within limited time frames.
Clearly, the advantages of shorter working hours outweigh the disadvantages. Longer weekends definitely leads to a better quality of life for most workers since they have more time for their families and leisure-time activities.