Will a four-day week work in Japan? People are skeptical
By Erik Korsvik Østergaard, 28. June 2021.
“Japanese lawmakers are debating whether companies should offer their staff the option of a regular three-day weekend, hoping that more relaxed workers will be less at risk of ‘karoshi’, or death by overwork.”
3-day working week? 4-day? 6-day?
Organizations have increasingly been debating this since the birth of the idea of the singularity. Do we need to work when the technology and the automation becomes advanced? And can we already now change to a shorter and less demanding working week?
It seems like the biggest challenge in Japan is the cultural change and the change management:
“Perhaps the biggest obstacle to a widespread acceptance of the system, however, would be from older and traditionally minded manager-level employees, who put in the long hours to build Japan into the economic powerhouse that it is today. They are likely to frown upon a new generation of workers not showing quite the same commitment to the company and the nation.”
This skepticism was mirrored in the Futurology subreddit on Reddit, where people both with and without personal experience with working in Japan have shared their thoughts.
