#1270 - working less
Last week, a prominent Italian bank group made the news because they proposed to their employee to work one day less every week - four instead of five - by adding ninety minutes of work to the remaining days.
Many conversations are going on the subject, as you can imagine. For some, it's a good experiment on a field that hasn't seen significant changes for decades. For others, it's just a way to reduce costs by having people go less into the office - energy will be an important issue in Europe this winter.
I'm not an expert in this field. Hence, I don't know the intention behind this proposal, I don't know if and how it will be implemented, and I have no idea of what could be advantages and disadvantages for the employees and the employer.
But it made me reflect on the beliefs we have about work.
First, I struggle with the concept of work/life balance.
Isn't work part of life?
The way it's usually discussed makes it feel like work is stealing time from our lives. As if life is what happens before and after work.
And probably it is experienced this way by many. The ones who feel they "have to" go to work in the morning.
I remember reading in the book Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi that this distinction between work and life starts in school. When we learn that studying is a tiresome but worthwhile activity, while play is fun but useless. The first one you have to do, the second you want to.
So, I feel that all these conversations about reducing working time are rooted in the idea that work is somehow tedious but worthwhile. What could happen if we make work a playful and fun experience?