Though more so now than before, we’re not fully back to how things were before the start of the pandemic, and that’s generally a good thing.
We’re nearing the end of 2022, and we keep looking back to 2019 as a comparison, not just in terms of hotel performance but as the last time things were “normal.” While familiar, normal doesn’t necessarily mean better. It can also mean stagnant.
One of the few good things to come out of the pandemic was the chance, desired or not, to shake things up and try something different. We saw that remote and hybrid work didn’t really hurt productivity and, in many cases, resulted in increased productivity. Companies that adapted to these new work models have found that employees generally are happier, and happier workers usually means more productivity.
That brings us to a pilot study nearing completion over in the United Kingdom. An organization known as Four Day Week has 73 companies in the U.K. trying out a four-day workweek for six months in which employees still receive 100% of their pay, NPR reports. The companies participating include financial firms, recruiters, consultants, healthcare companies and a fish-and-chip shop.
Though the full study hasn’t been released, 86% of the companies participating said they would likely continue the four-day workweek policy.
That’s pretty astounding, honestly. To get the companies to participate, the organization touted other studies that reduced work time actually increases productivity. While the NPR article points out that the data from those studies aren’t 100% solid — you can find links to the studies in the article — there do tend to be positive results from a shorter workweek.
NPR reached out to Laura Giurge, a professor of behavioral science who studies well-being at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics. She said that workers who are happier and better rested tend to be more productive and less likely to feel burned out. The shorter week also forces people to prioritize more and focus on the most important tasks.
Keeping employees idle between meetings and tasks results in wasted resources, she added.
"These idle hours not only fragment employees' attention — and therefore productivity — but can also cost companies up to $100 billion a year in lost wages," she said.
Now, does one unfinished pilot program and a handful of other studies mean you should immediately switch to a shorter workweek? Of course not, but they should make you curious.
Don’t dismiss this, thinking it could never work. The way hotels operate throughout the chain scale makes them somewhat different not just from other businesses but even from each other. But at the same time, they are not so far apart that they couldn’t try new work models. This applies to employees at the property level up to corporate headquarters.
Look at these studies, work with your HR departments to play out different models and see whether it actually could work. Get feedback from your current employees. Recognize the potential boost this could have to your hiring and retention efforts.
We have an opportunity for change, and some companies recognize it and are trying to do something with it. Not every new thing will work, but that’s not reason enough not to try. New work models like the four-day week, especially when there are studies and programs to review, are worth exploring. This is everyone’s chance to break away from “business as usual” and “this is how we’ve always done it.”
Times, and the work model, are changing, and it’s important to recognize the opportunities to move forward when they come. If you close yourself off to new ways because they’re new, you may be left behind those who saw what was going on and adapted.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.