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Shadow
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Essay for comments

Post by Shadow »

Do you think the school- and workweek should be four days instead of five? Why or why not?
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

Balancing personal and professional life is critically important in people’s lives. Reducing the five-day week to four-day work has its potential benefits like increased work-life balance and employer’s happiness. Despite the advantages, there are downfalls like a conflict of finding proper childcare and higher chances of losing a job. However, I think that a shorter workweek has its positive implications such as spending quality time with family leads to increased productivity and decreased carbon emissions which are better for the environment.

First of all, people who work four days a week are happier than others who work five days a week. This is because shorter workweek employees have three-day weekends, so people use this time to relax and spend time with their family. As a result, employers are happier and willing to accept new challenges. This will finally increase the performance of employees and benefit the organization. For example, nurse practitioners in Sweden worked for 4 days a week for 35 hours and had taken 3-day weekends. Because of this 3-day weekend, nurses had the luxury of time to enjoy time with their family members and helping children with their activities. Therefore, when the nurses came to the hospital on Monday, they were actively involved in patient care and completed most of the tasks on time. Thus, if the workweek is shortened to four days, then the productivity increases simultaneously.

Second of all, if people work for four days then they don’t have to commute to their workplace and office building doesn’t need to be open during Fridays. Thus, with fewer cars on roads and less energy consumption of buildings, it saves a lot of energy and reduces carbon emissions. For example, Utah in the United States conducted a trial of the shortened workweek for 10 months. During that period, it saved $1.8 million from carbon emissions on account of closing the office on Fridays. This means office building operation emits 6000 metric tons of carbon per one day so with shorter work week this operation is not in action. Accordingly, companies able to save money and reduce carbon emissions. Besides, carbon emission from buildings, employers’ of 2300 cars off-road saved 12,000 metric tons of carbon release from the fuel consumption. Thus, with a shorter workweek, people not only benefit themselves but also protect the environment.

In essence, I strongly believe that the benefits of a shorter workweek outweigh the risks of a long work week. This is due to increased productivity, as well as decreased carbon emissions from the companies promoting a safe environment.
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