Is the four day working week a possibility?

Imagine the working week was reduced to just four days, think of the possibilities an extra day off would mean! And it could actually become a reality, well that’s if Britain’s leading doctor Professor John Ashton gets his way.

Professor Ashton believes that work-life balance has been forgotten and people are enduring very high stress levels, saying: “We need a four-day week so that people can enjoy their lives, have more time with their families, and maybe reduce high blood pressure because people might start exercising on that extra day”

Yes, yes we would exercise more if we had an extra day off, sure.

However, Neil Shah, founder of Stress Management Society has burst the bubble with his realistic notion that trying to fit five days work into four will just make people even more stressed.

He said: “In theory the idea of a 4 day work week is fantastic! However, in practice what often happens is that people will become more stressed when having to face the reality of squeezing five days’ worth of work into four days. This has the potential to exacerbate the problem of a high workload rather than fix it.”

We knew it was too good to be true.

Although, Neil does has a happy medium and suggests strategies are put in place to help people handle their work load like working from home or enjoying shorter working days.