The Capital Territory Government (ACT) of Australia is responding to calls from a legislative committee to “reduce workloads” by promising to move on with trials for a four-day work week for future trials in December, which is why more employees are supporting the four-day workweek.
Even though it was “aware of the obvious benefits a four-day working week would provide,” the government issued a warning that difficulties would still arise. They also agreed that in order to maintain service delivery and guarantee sufficient roster coverage, staffing levels in many frontline sectors will probably need to rise.
Future trials and the public sector areas that might participate will be examined by the four-day workweek trials, namely in a working group established by the ACT government. This would comprise staff members in both full-time and part-time positions, as well as administrative and front-line business units. The ACT government stated that the working group would also decide how best to interact with the private sector and provide them with the chance to willingly take part in a trial and the necessary support systems to enable them to do so.
In its discussion paper, the committee made a distinction between “work time reduction” and “work time compression.” It defined the compression model as fitting the same number of working hours into fewer days, which it stated “is not beneficial for workers in general and for women in particular.” For upcoming trials, the ACT working group will examine a reduction model that maintains pay and benefits in exchange for shortened workweeks.
In a six-month Australasian pilot programme led by 4 Day Work Week Global, which 26 organisations participated in August, the reduction model was the recommended approach.
Once the study ended, 96% of workers desired to keep the four-day workweek. Moreover, 95% of organisations supported the shortened schedule, which lowered worker stress without lowering productivity. Among these businesses was Medibank, a health insurance provider that tested the reduction technique in October.
