By: Natasha Archary
Earlier this year, 28 South African companies signed up to test out the pilot “4-day work week”, which was a huge success in the US, Ireland and Australia.
Coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, which taught us a new way of approaching office-bound work days, the pilot in South Africa is said to have had a remarkable, positive result on those who have tried it out.
Director of 4 Day Week South Africa, Karen Lowe, joins Gugulethu Mfuphi on Kaya Biz to share an update on the pilot, and the impact that a day off a week has on employee health, and wellness.
“We’re about 6-days aways from completing the 6-month pilot project, which 28 South African companies, and 1 company in Botswana participated in.
Our results are no different to the global results, and our wellbeing scores for the organisations that participated in the pilot are tracking beautifully.
We’re seeing reduced staff absenteeism, lower burnout, just overall thriving employees who are happier, healthier, and more productive workplaces.”
Karen Lowe shares an update of the 4-day work week pilot project in South Africa
Lowe shares that some of the South African companies adopted a different approach to giving employees a Monday, or Friday off, by instead giving their workers 2 half-days in the week, or a Wednesday off.
Overall she says that the companies have all yielded positive results which will be released once the data has been compiled by Boston College and Stellenbosch Business School, which will be out in September.
Will South Africa adopt the 4-day work week? According to Lowe, this is highly unlikely, as it would need to be a long process to get the legislation passed, especially across sectors such as mining, construction, engineering etc.
