Personality Types Most Suited To A 4-Day Workweek
Publié le 6 February 2023
Learn about the different personality types most suited to a 4-day workweek, and see if this is the right work structure for your organization.
The 4-day workweek is a growing trend in the corporate world, promising far-reaching changes in the workplace. So far, several high-profile companies worldwide, such as Bolt, DNSFilter, Buffer, and GooseChase, have initiated a 4-day workweek policy. Many more companies are running pilot programs, and the world’s biggest 4-day workweek experiment launched in June 2022.
Enhancing employee productivity and well-being is one of the main goals of a 4-day workweek. To achieve this goal, employees and employers need to know what factors contribute to effective implementation of the 4-day workweek model.
Whether you’re an employer considering adopting this model or an employee wondering if you’d thrive within this structure, understanding work styles and what personality types are best suited to a 4-day workweek can help unlock some answers.
Read on to learn which personality types excel with a 4-day workweek, plus the benefits and challenges of making this schedule work for your organization.
What is a 4-day workweek?
A 4-day workweek means employees work only four days a week (typically Monday – Thursday) instead of the traditional five days (Monday-Friday). With a 3-day weekend, workers have more time to rest and recharge. Companies usually structure the 4-day workweek in one of two ways:
- The 100-80-100 model, where employees receive 100% of their pay for working 80% of the time (i.e. four 8-hour days) as long as they deliver 100% of the agreed productivity.
- Longer working hours where employees complete the usual 40 hours but in four days, meaning they work four 10-hour days.
A well-planned 4-day workweek arrangement benefits employers and employees in equal measure. It’s one of the reasons why most staffing and labor market experts say a 4-day workweek is the way of the future. The following advantages of a 4-day workweek support this outlook.
Benefits Of A 4-Day Workweek
While working 4 days a week brings many different gains for businesses and workers, these are the most consequential:
A 4-day workweek can help reduce and avoid employee burnout
According to a McKinsey report, employee burnout rates are on an upward trend worldwide despite employers’ remediation efforts. The report proposes more preventative action to curb employee burnout.
A 4-day workweek could be a more effective burnout prevention method because it gives employees more rest days, allowing them to engage in recovery experiences such as getting enough sleep and exercising more, contributing to an improved work-life balance. This helps prevent employee burnout in the short and long term.
Even so, a 4-day workweek isn’t a panacea for employee burnout because there are more complex reasons behind burnout, such as toxic workplace cultures, interpersonal conflicts, strict job demands, and work hindrances.
A 4-day workweek can help promote workplace equality
A four-day workweek empowers employees with child-care and caregiving responsibilities to better balance their time. With an additional day each week, employees can attend to household responsibilities without losing out on compensation or job advancement opportunities.
A 4-day workweek can also promote career mobility by providing employees with time to pursue additional learning upskilling programs, certificates, or courses. By allowing employees more time to develop their skills and further their education, employers will benefit from more productive, qualified, and motivated workers in the long run.
A 4-day workweek can improve recruitment and retention rates
We’re living in the era of flexibility where workers seek privileges that give them more freedom and working-time autonomy. People who feel that they have a higher degree of control over their daily work schedules are more likely to remain in their jobs long-term. As such, a 4-day work policy can make employers more appealing and increase loyalty among existing employees, helping companies maintain excellent retention and attrition rates while attracting top talent.
Personality types best suited to a 4-day workweek
Not every employee will embrace major organizational shifts like a 4-day workweek policy, but if a company has employees well-suited to a 4-day workweek then it could be worthwhile to make the switch.
Here are three personality types that will thrive with a 4-day workweek schedule:
Independent self-starters
Independent self-starters are self-motivated, ambitious, confident, and resilient. Naturally, such employees are outcome-focused, set grand career goals, have a growth mindset, and hold themselves to a high professional standard.
A 4-day work week, particularly the 100-80-100 model, demands a greater efficiency output from employees, or employers risk getting short-changed. Paying workers 100% wages for 80% of work time is a big gamble for companies, which is why they demand extra productivity from employees.
This indicates independent self-starters workers would find it easy to deliver under the 100-80-100 model.
Good time managers
Whether a company practices the 100-80-100 or the 10 hours for 4 days model, employees need exceptional time management skills to be productive. Considering that a U.K. study found the average worker is effective for only 2 hours and 58 minutes in an 8-hour workday, one must be an excellent time manager to work for 10 hrs a day without a productivity drop.
Employees who are excellent time managers have a better chance of staying organized to achieve high-efficiency levels under a 4-day workweek arrangement. Such employees will have mastered crucial time-management skills such as:
- Prioritization
- Organization
- Planning
- Scheduling
- Setting boundaries
- Time management systems and software
Collaborative team players
Employees with a collaborative attitude operate on a mutual win-win mindset, putting team goals above individual needs. Collaborative team players steer their peers toward finding innovative solutions to company challenges. Employees with this personality type will also possess important leadership skills such as:
- Integrity
- Communication
- Conflict resolution
- Communication
- Adaptability
- Delegation
These skills are integral to the overall success of a 4-day workweek, which calls for more extraordinary teamwork to achieve peak work efficiency and sustain employee wellness.
Challenges of a 4-day workweek and how to overcome them
Even with all its desirable perks, a 4-day workweek isn’t without its fair share of challenges, including:
1. Maintaining productivity
A 4-day workweek doesn’t eliminate all the impediments to work efficiency. Common workplace distractions such as social media, chatty coworkers, office noise, and unnecessary meetings still plague 4-day workweeks. These workplace distractions significantly derail workplace productivity.
Therefore, if you don’t work to curtail these obstacles, there could be a significant productivity drain.
2. Balancing work and personal life
Compacting the activities of a 5-day workweek into 4 days comes with higher stress levels and requires more energy.
Even with a 3-day weekend, it’s exceedingly complex for workers to disconnect from work, a reality underscored in a recent Passport-Photo.Online study, and attend to personal matters fully, for multiple reasons:
- pressure to be reachable over email or communication platforms like Slack
- a high-efficiency 4-day workweek can leave employees too energy-drained to run personal errands or engage in leisure activities meaningfully
3. Communication with team members
With a high-pressure 4-day workweek, communication breakdowns are more likely to occur. The fast-paced nature and intensity of project workflows call for fast and constant messaging among team members, which can often result in communication silos that hinder communication between teams and cause mistakes.
Conclusion
While having certain attributes and personality types can help employees adjust to a 4-day workweek schedule more effectively, it’s ultimately up to employers to ensure that their employees are guided and supported through a smooth transition to a 4-day workweek.
Employers can support workers by monitoring and adjusting workload and productivity expectations, providing employees with upskilling opportunities, and minimizing any distractions or company practices that hinder employees’ abilities to focus on accomplishing their tasks.
If you’re heading into or pursuing a 4-day workweek schedule, having specific strengths such as time management, collaboration, and self-motivation can help you succeed.
However, if these aren’t your natural strengths, it doesn’t mean you won’t be able to thrive in a 4-day workweek schedule. These are skills that you can develop and practice over time that will help you advance in your career, no matter what work model you find yourself in.
