This post originally appeared in Forbes on September 26, 2024.
Governments protect a wide assortment of employee rights, but could protecting the maximum number of hours, days or location be next? There's currently no legal limit to the number of hours an adult can work, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). No law guarantees flexibility of location, though many Amazon employees are likely wishing there was. Amazon made news this month — and not in a good way — by announcing a five-day return to office mandate. As worker backlash to extreme mandates continues to grow, perhaps governments will take more interest in protecting the flexibility and work/life balance of employees. For example, the U.K. government recently announced that full-time workers will have the right to request a four-day workweek under their new plans to increase flexibility.
Dr. Rebecca Hinds, Head of the Work Innovation Lab at Asana, gives insight into what factors companies should consider when making structural changes such as shortened workweeks or physical office mandates. She first references the results of the U.K. four-day workweek trial that concluded last year with mostly positive results. "When we think about how hard organizational change is, it's nice to see how over half the organizations [in the trial] committed to a new way of working. It's exciting. When you dig deeper into the companies that stuck to it and those that haven't, there are some pretty interesting trends."
Comments