In order to be attractive as an employer, more and more companies advertise with fewer working days. That doesn’t mean that you have to work less
Working four days, Thursday after work at 5 p.m. and then three days off: What sounds extremely tempting for many, especially young workers, is becoming a reality in more and more domestic companies. Attractive working hours are a must in order to address applicants at all in times of an acute shortage of skilled workers.
Wiener Linien is currently announcing pilot projects for the autumn to redistribute the 37.5-hour week to four days. And the domestic postal service is finally following up on an announcement from 2018 and will soon start delivering parcels four days a week.
It starts with the delivery base in Hagenbrunn (Lower Austria), where three deliverers can share two districts in a four-day service. “With this measure, we want to win new postal workers for the company in a targeted manner and we are excited to see how this model will be accepted,” says Post spokesman Markus Leitgeb to KURIER.
Two examples that follow a trend that deserves a closer look.
half for it
Studies confirm that contiguous leisure days are very much in vogue: half of Austrians would welcome a legally anchored option between a four- and five-day week with the same weekly working time (40 hours), according to a survey by the Spectra Institute (see Graphic). There are big differences depending on the age group. 68 percent of those aged 15 to 29 are in favor of it, compared to just 40 percent of those over 50. More free time is given as the main reason by supporters.
Same working time
More freetime? Something is often overlooked. When companies advertise a “four-day week”, it is usually not a question of reducing working hours, but of dividing the weekly working time into four instead of five days. So the 8-hour work day becomes a 10-hour work day. This flexible working has been legally possible since 1998, and since the 2018 reform it has even been possible to work up to 12 hours a day.
In some collective agreements, for example in retail, there is now a legal right to a four-day week. So far, however, companies have been reluctant, also because many working time models have already been established through part-time work, flextime or shift work. The introduction of the four-day week is anything but easy and is therefore often only common as a pilot project, in individual departments or in start-ups.
“It becomes difficult when you offer this model in a ambush in order to quickly acquire more employees and do not integrate it into the company processes and you expect the same productivity. That will lead to problems in the medium term,” says Bettina Stadler from the Research and Advice Center for the World of Work (FORBA).
Full wage compensation
The union and Chamber of Labor warn that when there is a high workload in practice, the four-day week can quickly turn into a secret five-day week. They demand a “real” four-day week with full wage compensation, i.e. a reduction in working hours. In order to make the changeover easier, a company should only bear a third of the costs if working hours are reduced by 20 percent, another third should be shouldered by the AMS and the rest by the employees themselves.
The Chamber of Commerce wants to leave the decision to the companies. And how does it continue? “During the pandemic, many people defined the value of work differently,” says Stadler. “But inflation, which is becoming more and more noticeable for many people, may have an impact on working time preferences again.”