Vanessa Balintec’s article “These Canadian companies switched to a 4-day work week. Here’s Why” discusses the benefits of reducing work days from five to four. The article argues that the 4-day working model helps employees balance their working and personal lives (Balintec, 2023). It further states that the companies can maintain production efficiency and motivate the employees to work harder. The model has proved effective for small-scale companies, and scholars are proposing further studies to investigate if it can be applied to large-scale companies. This article is significant to this course since it discusses management efficiency and employee motivation. This article relates to management function and human resource management course materials discussed in modules five and seven.
The article discusses the employee’s motivation. The four-day model gives employees more time to balance their personal and work lives. The sick days reduced in the work, and the production increased, leading to high revenues (Balintec, 2023). This shows that the employees are motivated to utilize their working hours efficiently. Further, the article discusses resistance to change. This calls for the management to utilize different implementation strategies to ensure all employees support the 4-day working model. This includes effective planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the organization’s operations. The article also discusses employee compensation, emphasizing that salaries should be maintained despite the reduced working hours (Balintec, 2023). This will reduce the possibility of resistance and motivate the employees. Furthermore, it shows management efficiency since the employees work less time while meeting the production capacity, sometimes surpassing it.
The 4-day working model is important for the business sector as a whole. It is a form of employee motivation. Instead of using monetary employee benefits as a form of motivation, companies can employ this method. It helps cut production costs such as transport allowances since the employee’s working hours are reduced, thus improving management efficiency. It further helps the employees work fewer hours and maintain production since they have enough time to deal with their personal lives (Balintec, 2023). This helps reduce some adverse effects of working long hours, such as burnout and work-related stress, while improving employee efficiency. The proposed model’s long-term impact includes employee motivation, reduced absenteeism, creating training hours, improved production, increased revenues, and improved employees’ social lives.
The article provides an essential solution to many companies’ human resource problems. It encourages management to care about their subordinate’s lifestyle without hurting the companies’ operations. Further, it shows the importance of encouraging positive changes in human resource management. The strength of the article’s argument is that the provided solution is tested and compared to the previous model, and the results are convincing. Four-day working model benefits employees, management, and companies, making it more favorable. However, it applies to small scale companies with small logistic work. This threatens big companies, which involve many operations and employees. However, the management through planning, organizing, leading, and controlling can help to overcome these challenges.
Finally, the article discusses how the four-day working model can help improve human resources and management efficiency. It argues that the four-day working model motivates employees, improves management efficiency, and leads to effective production. This article articulates management functions, for example, planning to improve human resources in a company. It is crucial to the business sector since it shows that the company can use other motivation strategies rather than monetary ones to motivate employees and improve its performance.
References
Balintec, V. (2023, July 13). These Canadian companies switched to a 4-day work week. Here’s why. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/four-day-work-week-north-america-study-1.6921359
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