As of: 03/13/2023 5:00 a.m
A lack of trainees, a lack of skilled workers, the desire for a better work-life balance – the economy is facing major challenges. Is the four-day week a solution?
The shortage of skilled workers is a problem across all sectors. In addition, young people in particular are demanding more and more flexibility in their jobs. In the UK, a number of companies have piloted working hours down to four days without a pay cut. There were many advantages: the company’s turnover increased, the number of days absent fell, productivity rose, the stress level of the employees and fluctuation fell. And in Germany, too, the first companies have introduced the four-day week for their employees. Is this the beginning of a new world of work – also in Schleswig-Holstein?
motivation and freedom
The Lübeck IT company Kontor Consulting GmbH already offers its 27 employees a four-day week with 32 working hours. The employees enjoy the trust. Managing Director Carolina Wehrmann said that her experiences were consistently positive: “The teams sort of organize themselves among themselves and everyone sees when they can take the day off.” Alternatively, employees at Kontor Consultung GmbH can also work five days a day, i.e. six hours a day.
“It is important that we are available for our customers – we have to organize that together,” says Wehrmann. Employee Katharina Kirstein is enthusiastic: “I have to say, it’s the first time that I’ve been working with so much freedom.” For her, the motivation is therefore also significantly higher, “perhaps somehow turning on the laptop again in the evening or checking in again in between, because you also know that in return you simply have a lot of freedom, just this additional day off. And there is much more possible”. .
IHK: Interesting idea, no general solution
Ulrich Witt from the Lübeck Chamber of Industry and Commerce says that the four-day week is a very interesting, alternative working time model to the classic 40-hour week, which is already being tried out by a number of companies in the district. “Even if the feedback we receive is mostly positive, it also shows that this model only seems to be applicable in individual cases and does not represent a fundamental solution,” Witt continues. And the IHK Flensburg also believes that the increasingly explosive personnel situation in companies means that flexible and innovative employment models are being intensively considered.
However, both chambers of industry and commerce also say that the four-day week primarily makes it easier to bind employees to companies for longer. However, this is not a solution to counteract the shortage of skilled workers. But Witt doesn’t want to write off the project entirely: “The challenge lies in the fact that the entire company really has to be geared towards it. It’s not enough to say, from next week you’ll only come four days and get the same money, or we’ll pass the salary. But processes also have to be checked and streamlined, because ultimately the same work has to be done in a shorter time.”
Dehoga: Four-day week only for employees, not for companies
Stefan Scholtis, Managing Director of Dehoga Schleswig-Holstein, is generally open to a four-day week, but points out: “Of course, companies must have enough employees to cover the rest of the time, because a four-day week for Employee does not mean a four-day week for the company.”
Ver.di: Flexibility must not be a one-way street
In the opinion of the employee representatives, flexibility should not be a one-way street. This is exactly what the spokesman for the trade union ver.di Nord, Frank Schischewski, criticizes. Because when employers demand flexibility, they would often mean an increase in working hours.
The Flensburg-Schleswig-Eckernförde employers’ association is open to the idea of a four-day week. “The creation of good framework conditions for a – physically and mentally – healthy working environment and a good work-life balance are of course to be endorsed,” says Managing Director Christian Jaekel. However, he also points out that the pressure increases with 20 percent less working time, because the tasks still have to be completed.
The whole thing is also very subjective. According to Jaekel, there are – according to his observations – many employees who prefer to “hammer in” more in a shorter time and thus actually get more done in less time than others who divide their workload differently, emphasizes Jaekel. In addition to the four-day week, there are also other ways of organizing working hours. He cites part-time, home office and other flexible working time models as examples. In addition, employees can always negotiate their working hours freely when they are hired, Christian Jaekel continues.
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