Editorial voice from elsewhere
The coronavirus crisis has millions of workers and thousands of companies wondering when life will get back to normal.
That will be weeks or months from now, with the initially optimistic President Donald Trump extending social distancing guidelines through April 30.
The real determinant in the days and weeks ahead will be the progress that can be made in halting COVID-19’s spread. Infection and coronavirus-death statistics that have been growing alarmingly have been indicating increasingly pessimistic short- and longer-term prospects regarding that which the president is hopeful.
But, who knows for sure?
There will be a time when COVID-19 is defeated, however. In the meantime, business leaders have some opportunity to reflect on strategies – new ones and those already being used – as they deal with the immediate challenges with which they currently are being confronted.
Back on the weekend of Feb. 29 to March 1 – when the coronavirus assault on the United States seemed less daunting – the Wall Street Journal published what can be described as an interesting essay adapted from a new book written by a consultant who has been a visiting scholar at Stanford and Oxford universities.
His name is Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, and his book is titled “Shorter: Work Better, Smarter and Less – Here’s How.”
The essay published in the Journal began:
“How can you identify your company’s most dedicated, creative workers, the ones best able to embrace challenges and adapt to changes? Ask them to work a shorter week without reducing their salaries.”
Many people would agree that that is food for thought, although there are many companies, businesses or other enterprises not conducive to such a strategy, or otherwise consider such an option disruptive.
Still, the author points to what he describes as “a movement quietly building for years,” and the following examples from around the world were provided in the essay where the shorter/fewer option has been deemed successful:
- Microsoft Japan, where productivity rose nearly 40% during a summer trial of four-day weeks, while electricity costs decreased 23%.
- Glasgow call center Pursuit Marketing, where productivity increased by 30% with a four-day week.
- Woowa Brothers, the Korean e-commerce giant, whose revenue grew tenfold during three years of shortening hours.
- Goodall Group, a San Diego real-estate firm where, after moving to a four-day workweek, employees began developing new initiatives and experiments for getting things done more effectively.
- Glebe, a Virginia nursing home, where annual turnover among nurses’ aides fell to 44% from 128% after the facility moved to a 30-hour week.
The owner of an Australian cosmetics company described her outcome this way: “We work four days a week because, after a three-day weekend, anything is possible.”
Meanwhile, San Diego’s Goodall Group founder described his workers as starting “to feel more like owners. All I did was give them a day off.”
That to which Alex Soojung-Kim Pang is calling attention is fodder for discussion, if nothing else. For most companies, such a drastic change would be impractical or impossible.
America’s economy is built on a foundation of new ideas, nevertheless.
Downtime is a good time to weigh potential opportunities easily overlooked amid the course of normal business.