Tag Archives: New Zealand

Counting down the hours: could a shorter working week raise productivity and improve our mental health?

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In 1930, the influential British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that within 100 years the working week would have shrunk to 15 hours. He believed that as living standards rose people would choose to have more leisure time as their material needs were satisfied.

For a time, it looked as if Keynes might be right. In the post-war period, average working hours continued falling, and analysis by the New Economics Foundation has suggested that if this trend had continued we would currently have an average working week of around 34 hours.

But in the 1980s, labour market deregulation, reduced collective bargaining, and slower growth in pay for low income workers put the brakes on working time reductions.

In the UK, 74% of the workforce work an average of 42.5 hours a week. That’s longer than in any EU country, apart from Greece and Austria.

The benefits of a shorter working week

In recent years, the twin challenges of climate change and automation of jobs, along with growing concerns about mental health and work/life balance, have prompted a rethink on working hours.

For some, a shorter working week means compressing forty working hours into four days instead of five.  Others argue that a truly progressive four-day week involves fewer hours at work, with no reduction in pay.

While many employers may recoil at the prospect of paying the same wage for fewer hours, a growing body of evidence presents some strong arguments in favour of this approach:

  • Studies of working hours reductions have demonstrated increases in productivity over four days to compensate for the loss of the fifth working day.
  • Employees with reduced hours spend less time on inefficient tasks, such as meetings.
  • Fewer hours can mean less stress, greater work-life balance and increased motivation.
  • A 2020 study by Autonomy found that a four day working week could potentially reduce energy consumption for the extra non-working day by 10% and emissions intensity by 15%.
  • A shorter working week could have positive effects on gender equality.
  • Maintenance costs can be reduced if all employees are out of the office for an additional day each week.

The four-day week in practice: lessons from New Zealand

In May, New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern encouraged employers to consider the four-day working week as one of the ways the country’s economy could be rebuilt following the Covid-19 pandemic. She suggested that reductions in working hours could boost productivity and domestic tourism and improve work/life balance.

In fact, one New Zealand firm has already demonstrated the positive effects of a shorter working week. In March 2018, financial services company Perpetual Guardian began a two-month trial in which its 240 staff worked four eight-hour days, but got paid for five. The experiment was monitored by academics at the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology.

The findings from the trial showed that supervisors were able to maintain performance levels, and most teams recorded a marginal increase. Meanwhile, employees reported improved job satisfaction and a better work/life balance. In addition, many employees expressed a sense of greater empowerment in their work because of the planning discussions that preceded the trial. The success of the trial has now resulted in the four-day week being adopted as company policy at Perpetual Guardian.

The cost of cutting hours

Another working hours trial, in Gothenburg, Sweden, involved nurses in a care home being offered the chance to work six-hour shifts instead of eight, on full pay. While the trial resulted in improvements in staff satisfaction, health and patient care, the city had to employ an extra 17 staff, costing £1.4m. Critics of the scheme said the need to pump additional taxpayers’ money into the trial proved that it was not economically sustainable.

Cost is a potential stumbling block to further working hours reductions. A 2019 report from the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) estimated that the cost to the UK public sector of moving to a four-day week would be £45 billion if attempted immediately, or £17 billion assuming generous productivity gains from shorter hours. The authors argued that such costs would require spending cuts in public services or substantial tax rises.

However, the Autonomy think tank has put the net cost of a 32-hour week at no more than £5.4 billion. Autonomy has also pointed to improvements in job quality for millions of public sector staff, the creation of 500,000 new jobs and reductions in the sector’s carbon footprint as potential benefits of shorter hours.

Burnout or rethink?

In October 2020, the 4 Day Week Campaign, Autonomy and Compass published Burnout Britain, looking at the impact of longer working hours. The report noted that over the past three years the length of the working day has increased steadily, resulting in a 49% rise in mental distress reported by employees. Women are experiencing particular pressures, with 43% more likely to have increased their hours during the Covid-19 crisis.

The report warned that beyond the coronavirus pandemic, the UK faces another serious public health emergency:

“…as well as an impending recession and mass unemployment, we are heading into an unprecedented mental health crisis”

The existing evidence suggests there’s a strong case to be made for reductions in working hours. Apart from the potential productivity gains and improvements in the quality of life, there are savings to be made in the costs of treating mental ill health caused by overwork.

Even so, government and employers will require further proof of the tangible benefits of a shorter working week before committing to permanent changes.

Crisis often accelerates change, and the Covid-19 pandemic has injected new urgency into the debate. Remote working, restrictions in the workplace and the threat of mass unemployment have demonstrated the need to reconsider the old rules that only months ago seemed set in stone.

We are still a long way from Keynes’ vision of a 15-hour week. But 2020 has shown that shining a light on previously unthinkable alternatives to our current ways of working is not only possible, but essential.

Further reading: more on working conditions from The Knowledge Exchange blog:

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How well is your economy? Moving beyond GDP as an indicator of success

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by Scott Faulds

Since the early 20th century, the predominant method of evaluating the success of a country has been through the metric of Gross Domestic Production (GDP). This measurement is based upon the assumption that economic growth is the key indicator of a successful country.

In recent years, this assumption has been challenged, with politicians and economists, arguing that the focus on GDP has led to the development of policy which values economic growth at the expense of the wellbeing of society.

Following the 2018 OECD World Forum, Scotland, Iceland and New Zealand, have formed a group known as the Wellbeing Economy Governments, to share best practice of how to build an economic strategy that will foster societal wellbeing.  Additionally, organisations such as the OECD, European Commission and United Nations, are all conducting research into the development of policy beyond GDP. Therefore, it is clear that the previously held consensus surrounding the use of GDP has begun to break down, with countries across the world searching for different ways to evaluate the success of policy.

“We must forge ahead with progressive economic policies that defy common stereotypes about costs and benefits and keep on promoting gender equality as part of a forward-looking social justice agenda“

Katrín Jakobsdóttir
Prime Minister of Iceland

 

What’s wrong with GDP?

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), GDP is the measurement of the monetary value of all final goods and services produced within a country during a given period. However, it should be noted that this measure excludes unpaid work and the economic activity of the black market. Simon Kutzents, the modern-day creator of GDP, argued that whilst GDP was effective as a measure of productivity, it should have never been used as an indicator of the welfare of a nation.

Critics of GDP contend that the measure is overly simplistic, due to its interpretation of a successful country as one which is experiencing economic growth, arguing that some countries with growing economies have many social problems. For example, in China GDP grew by 6.6% last year whilst levels of inequality rose faster than in other countries, and society faces a great deal of political oppression. Therefore, it can be said that GDP does not provide a true picture of the success of a country, as it fails to consider societal problems, such as inequality and political freedom.  

The wellbeing approach

As a result of growing criticism of the use of GDP, several countries have started to look at alternative approaches of measuring success which considers factors beyond economic growth. This has led to international interest around the concept of wellbeing, a desire to create policy to improve the wellness of society.

This can manifest in a variety of different forms, from Scotland’s National Performance Framework to New Zealand’s Wellbeing Budget –  both policies designed to help improve the health of society rather than solely increasing economic growth.

However, this should not be interpreted as a movement away from encouraging businesses to grow; rather the Wellbeing Economy Governments believe that by improving the wellbeing of society they will indirectly stimulate sustainable economic growth.

“We need to address the societal well-being of our nation, not just the economic well-being“

Jacinda Ardern
Prime Minister of New Zealand

As a result of creating a budget justified by improvements in societal wellbeing, New Zealand has invested record levels of funding into supporting the mental wellbeing of all citizens, with a special focus on under 24s. Additionally, the budget prioritises measures to reduce child poverty, reduce inequality for Māori and Pacific Islanders and enable a just transition to a sustainable and low-emissions economy. New Zealand believes that by tackling these inequalities, economic growth can be stimulated in ways that benefit all New Zealanders, where improvements in mental health alone could lead to an increase in GDP of 5%.

Therefore, whilst GDP isn’t the main priority of policy making under the wellbeing approach, it is possible for economic growth to occur as a result of implementing policy designed to improve the wellbeing of society. After all, according to the World Health Organisation, a healthier and happier society is a more productive society.

How well is well?

It is evident that the use of GDP as a measure of a country’s success has faced a great deal of criticism in recent years. However, some economists are not ready to give up on GDP quite yet. They argue that whilst GDP is not a perfect representation of a country’s success, neither is the wellbeing approach as it can be incredibly difficult to quantify societal wellness.

For example, if we compare one citizen who is in poor health and lives in an area experiencing low-levels of crime with another citizen who is healthy and lives in an area with high-levels of crime, how can we quantify which citizen has the better level of wellbeing?

In short, critics of the wellbeing approach argue that whilst it is vital that society’s wellbeing is considered during the policy-making process, basing policy solely around wellbeing is ineffective and would be incredibly difficult to measure, due to the personal nature of what constitutes wellbeing.

“Growth in GDP should not be pursued at any or all cost … the objective of economic policy should be collective well-being: how happy and healthy a population is, not just how wealthy a population is.”

Nicola Sturgeon
First Minister of Scotland

Final Thoughts

In summary, whilst there is a great deal of international interest in the possibility of a movement away from GDP, no consensus has yet formed as to whether the wellbeing approach is the way forward. With all new forms of policy, other countries often wait to see if early adopters succeed before following their lead. Perhaps it will be left up to smaller countries to prove that an economic policy focused on wellbeing can be successful.

Until then expect to see a great deal of interest in New Zealand’s implementation of the Wellbeing Budget and the results of the second meeting of the Wellbeing Economy Governments in Iceland this autumn.

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