The Four-Day Workweek, Shorter Working Hours Must Be Combined with Work Redesign
- The Four-Day Workweek Works as Pressure to Remove Waste
Reducing working hours is not simply about working one day less. It is pressure that makes it impossible for organizations to keep hiding unnecessary meetings, excessive reporting, slow approvals, and duplicated work. The real meaning of the four-day workweek is not the expansion of days off, but the demand to redesign the entire way work is done.
[Key Message]
* The core of shorter working hours is not simply working one day less, but revealing and removing hidden waste inside organizations. The four-day workweek is both a welfare policy and a pressure to redesign the structure of work.
* For the four-day workweek to succeed, organizations must not force five days’ worth of work into four days. They must boldly reduce work that is not directly connected to performance, such as unnecessary meetings, reports, approvals, and duplicated tasks.
* Good organizations will increasingly evaluate people not by how long they work, but by whether they complete important work. Shorter working hours shift the standard of performance from “time spent” to “work completed and real value created.”
* The role of middle managers will change from supervision and checking to designing the flow of work. A good manager is not someone who creates more meetings and demands more reports, but someone who gives time back to the team and helps people focus.
* The four-day workweek will not arrive in the same form for every organization. It will spread in different ways depending on industry and company size, but competitiveness will ultimately depend not on how long people work, but on how little they waste and how deeply they work.
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When One Day Is Removed, Waste Becomes Visible First
The debate over shorter working hours is often divided into simple support or opposition. Supporters talk about quality of life, relief from burnout, more time for caregiving, and the recovery of creativity. Opponents worry about declining productivity, higher labor costs, gaps in customer response, and the difficulty of implementation for small and medium-sized companies. Both sides point to real issues. Yet there is a core point this debate often misses. Reducing working hours is not just about reducing time. It is an organizational design question that asks what should remain and what should be removed within the reduced time.
Under the five-day workweek, much waste is not easily seen. Even if meetings are long, reports are repeated, approval procedures are slow, and work is delayed meaninglessly as it passes through many hands, the organization somehow keeps running. Time serves as a buffer. Employees cover the inefficiency of the system through leftover time, overtime, weekend work, and personal sacrifice. In other words, the organization is not maintained because there are no problems. It is maintained because someone’s extra labor has been covering those problems.
But the moment one day disappears or working hours are reduced, that buffer becomes thinner. Things that used to be brushed aside with the thought, “We can just do a little more,” can no longer be handled that way. A single meeting eats into actual working time, one unnecessary report delays customer response, and time spent waiting for a superior’s decision immediately leads to delayed results. Reduced time is not a gift that makes the organization comfortable. It is a light that makes it impossible to hide organizational waste any longer.
This is why the four-day workweek is both a welfare policy and a management innovation mechanism. A properly designed four-day workweek is closer to “let us eliminate less important work” than to “let us work less.” If an organization is to maintain the same level of performance after removing one day, it must sharpen its priorities. Meetings must be reduced, reports must become shorter, and decision-making authority must move closer to the front line. People who finish important work must be recognized more than people who simply work long hours. In the end, the success or failure of the four-day workweek depends not on the work schedule, but on the work design.
When shorter working hours are explained only in the language of welfare, the debate easily becomes emotional. Expectations that more days off will be good collide with anxiety over who will do the work. But when the issue is viewed through the language of production methods, the question changes. Which tasks currently being done are actually connected to performance? Which tasks create value for customers and citizens? Conversely, which tasks are repeated for internal reassurance, inertia, or the avoidance of responsibility? The four-day workweek makes it impossible to avoid these questions.
The Core of the Four-Day Workweek Is Not Rest, but Deletion
The most common misunderstanding of the four-day workweek is to see it simply as “a system in which people take Fridays off.” Of course, it may look that way on the surface. But what really matters is not which day people take off. The core question is whether the organization will force five days’ worth of work into four days, or whether it will boldly delete unnecessary work from what used to be done over five days.
A failing four-day workweek usually becomes compressed labor. Meetings remain the same, reports remain the same, customer response remains the same, and approval procedures remain the same, but the number of working days is reduced. Then employees burn out faster, check messages even on their days off, and face an explosive increase in work intensity during the weekdays. On the surface, it is a four-day workweek. In reality, it becomes “four days of attendance and five days of labor.” This kind of arrangement is difficult to sustain. Employees feel greater pressure rather than the benefits of the system, while managers worry about declining productivity and try to return to the old way.
A successful four-day workweek works in the opposite way. First, work is reduced. More precisely, activities unrelated to performance are reduced. Meetings are limited to thirty minutes, half of regular meetings are eliminated, and reports are replaced with short memos and data dashboards. Decision-making authority is pushed downward, repetitive tasks are automated, and tasks with unclear ownership are reorganized. Work that appears important to everyone but produces no real outcome is removed. Only through this process can the four-day workweek become a transformation of production methods rather than an intensification of labor.
The most important question here is not “What should we do more efficiently?” but “What should we stop doing?” Many organizations begin the conversation on efficiency by looking for new tools. They introduce collaboration platforms, add artificial intelligence, and build automation systems. Of course, technology can help. But if unnecessary work remains untouched and technology is simply layered on top, waste does not disappear. It circulates faster. Unneeded reports are produced more quickly, unimportant meeting minutes are organized more elaborately, and meaningless materials accumulate in greater volume.
In organizations, eliminating work is more difficult than starting new work. New tasks look like innovation, new projects look like enthusiasm, and new reporting systems look like stronger management. By contrast, the moment someone says a certain task should be stopped, someone becomes uneasy. Is it really okay to eliminate this work? Who will take responsibility if a problem occurs? Will reducing reports weaken control? Because of these anxieties, organizations keep holding on to unnecessary work. The four-day workweek shakes precisely this inertia.
That is why the four-day workweek asks uncomfortable questions. Is this meeting really necessary? Who reads this report? Does this approval stage reduce risk, or is it a procedure for avoiding responsibility? Is this task connected to customer value, or is it an internal reassurance activity? A four-day workweek that fails to answer these questions is likely to fail. By contrast, in organizations that confront these questions directly, the four-day workweek becomes a powerful mechanism for removing waste.
The Time That Disappears from Meeting Rooms Changes the Company
When shorter working hours begin, meetings are the first thing placed under scrutiny. In many organizations, meetings are used not as a means of doing work, but as evidence that work has been done. Everyone gathered, exchanged opinions, shared materials, and scheduled the next meeting. Yet no real decision was made. Even after the meeting ends, the responsible person remains unclear, the next action remains vague, and the same topic returns to the meeting room again.
Under the five-day workweek, this kind of meeting can survive. If a meeting runs long, someone can work overtime. If a decision is delayed, it can be discussed again the next day. But under a four-day workweek, the opportunity cost of meetings becomes much higher. When one hour disappears, actual execution time shrinks by that amount. As meetings increase, work becomes more compressed, and employees end up carrying work into their days off. Therefore, in a four-day workweek organization, meetings must be fewer, shorter, and more decision-centered.
Reducing meetings is not simply a matter of reducing schedules. It is about changing the purpose of meetings. Information sharing can be replaced by documents or collaboration tools. Simple status updates can be handled through short asynchronous updates. Meetings should not be a time to check one another’s faces. They should be a mechanism for resolving conflicts, confirming choices, and assigning responsibility. When a meeting ends, at least three things should remain: what has been decided, who is responsible, and by when it will be completed. If these are absent, that meeting has consumed the organization’s time.
In the future, corporate productivity innovation is likely to be measured first not by grand digital transformation, but by meeting reduction. Meeting time is one of the easiest indicators of organizational waste. By tracking how many people gathered, for how many hours, and without what decision, organizational inefficiency becomes visible. Companies preparing for a four-day workweek will manage indicators such as weekly meeting hours, the number of recurring meetings, the number of participants, and the decision rate after meetings more actively.
Fewer meetings do not simply mean a freer calendar. They mean authority has been distributed, document culture has improved, and decision-making standards have become clearer. Organizations that succeed in reducing meetings usually reduce reporting, reduce approvals, and clarify work priorities as well. Therefore, meeting reduction is not a side effect of the four-day workweek. It is likely to become its starting point.
In the future, being able to say “our company has few meetings” may become an important attraction in recruitment. In the past, benefits, salary, and remote work were key tools for attracting talent. In the future, the degree to which focused time is protected may become more important. The more capable the talent, the more likely they are to avoid organizations that use their time carelessly. Meeting culture will no longer be a secondary element of organizational culture. It will become an important indicator of corporate competitiveness.
Reports Should Reduce Judgment, Not Add Length
Reporting culture must also change along with shorter working hours. In Korean organizations, reporting reflects not only information delivery but also hierarchy and responsibility structures. The ability to write reports is sometimes confused with practical competence, and sentences that reassure superiors are sometimes valued more than actual problem-solving. But in an organization with reduced working hours, lengthy reporting becomes a major cost. Reports do not exist to be read. They exist to support judgment.
Many reports are closer to preemptive defense than to actual decision-making. Background explanations are extended to prepare for possible questions, opinions from several departments are listed to avoid blurring responsibility, and all possible information is included so that decision-makers do not feel uneasy. As a result, reports become thicker, but judgment does not become easier. The core decision is pushed backward, and the reader must spend more time. Within reduced working hours, this reporting culture becomes one of the first points of friction.
In a four-day workweek organization, reports must be shorter, clearer, and more centered on options. Instead of explaining the situation at length, they must first show what needs to be decided. The available options, the advantages and disadvantages of each, and the recommended option must be clear. Information that helps the organization move matters more than sentences designed to persuade a superior. The purpose of reporting must shift from “providing information” to “requesting a decision.”
When reporting is reduced, the organization may feel uneasy at first. Managers may feel as if they know less about the situation, and employees may feel as if a protective shield has disappeared. But good reporting reduction is not a reduction of information. It is the reduction of duplication and decoration. It makes key data more visible, clarifies responsibility and deadlines, and removes unnecessary sentences. Ultimately, a good report is not one that says more. It is one that helps people make judgments faster.
Shorter working hours also change the aesthetics of reports. Quick understanding, clear responsibility, and actionable conclusions become more important than elegant sentences, thick materials, or perfect formatting. The moment an organization reduces reports, employees regain time to do actual work. Managers can focus on judgment. A change in reporting culture may look like a small administrative improvement, but in reality it is a core condition that determines the success or failure of the four-day workweek.
People Who Finish Work Matter More Than People Who Sit for Long Hours
One reason reducing working hours is difficult is that many organizations still use time as a proxy indicator of performance. People who sit at their desks for a long time appear diligent. People who leave late appear responsible. People who can be contacted even on holidays appear committed. But this kind of evaluation values the visible exposure of labor more than the result of work. How busy a person appears influences evaluation more than how important a problem they actually solved.
The four-day workweek shakes this practice. When working hours are reduced, it becomes difficult to use “how long someone stayed” as the standard. Instead, “what was completed” becomes important. This is not just a change in evaluation methods. It is a change in organizational culture. To measure performance by outcomes, goals must be clear, roles must be defined, and priorities must be organized. Otherwise, employees will not know what to do first within the reduced time, and they will end up handling the most visible tasks first.
Performance-centered organizations do not treat all work equally. They distinguish important work from less important work. They distinguish urgent work from important work. They distinguish customer value from internal procedures. They distinguish real performance from formal outputs. This is where the four-day workweek can increase productivity. When time becomes scarce, organizations are forced to choose. Organizations that cannot choose fall into confusion. Organizations that can choose gain greater focus.
This change also demands new responsibility from employees. In an organization with reduced time, saying “I was busy” is not enough. Employees must be able to explain what they completed, what they postponed, and why they made those judgments. As autonomy grows, the ability to judge priorities also becomes more important. The four-day workweek is not simply a comfortable system for employees. It is also a system in which they must judge the weight of work for themselves and speak through results.
However, this responsibility must not be pushed only onto individual employees. If an organization keeps its goals vague, says every task is important, and continues to throw sudden requests at employees while demanding that they work efficiently, the four-day workweek will fail. To move toward performance-centered work, the organization must choose first. It must clarify what is essential, what can be given up, and what can be postponed. Time reduction is not a matter of individual time management. It is a matter of organizational priority management.
Good Managers Give Time Back to Their Teams
Middle managers are likely to feel the biggest change brought by the four-day workweek. Employees experience the reduction of their own working hours, and executives decide whether to introduce the system. But the people who actually make the four-day workweek function in the field are middle managers. This is because work priorities, meeting operations, staffing, bottleneck removal, and performance checks all pass through the hands of middle managers.
Traditional managers are mainly people who check. They check who is doing what, receive reports, give instructions, and monitor progress. But in the era of shorter working hours, managers must be better at design than at checking. They must organize what team members should focus on, block unnecessary requests, break through points where decision-making has stopped, and coordinate conflicts with other departments. They must become people who protect the time of the team.
This does not mean the authority of managers will decline. On the contrary, it means their role will become more important. In a four-day workweek organization, bad managers become the people who take the most time away from their teams. They hold meetings frequently, repeatedly demand reports, delay decisions, and shift responsibility downward. Good managers, by contrast, are people who give time back to their teams. They reduce meetings, clarify goals, eliminate unnecessary work, and create an environment in which team members can focus.
In the future, middle managers are unlikely to be evaluated only by revenue or project completion. Elements such as team member burnout, meeting time, turnover, work bottlenecks, decision-making speed, and protection of focused time will become part of managerial competence. How much a manager saved the team’s time will become an important evaluation standard. Until now, time in organizations has often been treated like air that anyone could use freely. In the era of shorter working hours, it becomes the most precious resource.
By contrast, managers who fail to adapt to this change are likely to be recognized as organizational bottlenecks. Managers who delay decisions, increase meetings, and repeat reporting will no longer be seen as “meticulous managers.” They may be evaluated as “managers who create time costs.” Shorter working hours will accelerate a generational shift in management culture. A good manager is not someone who pressures team members to work faster. A good manager is someone who clears the path so the team can wander less and work more deeply.
Artificial Intelligence Can Create Breathing Room, but It Can Also Intensify Surveillance
In discussions of shorter working hours, artificial intelligence often appears as a solution. There is an expectation that if repetitive tasks are automated, document writing is supported, meeting minutes are organized, and customer response is assisted, the same work can be done in less time. This expectation is valid to a considerable degree. Artificial intelligence is already rapidly changing parts of knowledge work. It can reduce time spent on material organization, drafting, data classification, schedule coordination, and customer inquiry handling.
However, artificial intelligence is not an automatic solution to shorter working hours. Rather, it is closer to a tool that tests the level of work design within an organization. In organizations where work is clearly defined, data is well organized, and decision-making standards are clear, artificial intelligence can improve productivity. By contrast, in organizations where work is vague, responsibility is unclear, and reporting and approval structures are complex, artificial intelligence can amplify confusion more quickly.
For example, reducing the time needed to write reports does not necessarily improve reporting culture. If artificial intelligence helps produce reports faster, the organization may demand even more reports. If meeting minutes can be automated, meetings may not decrease. Only the records of meetings may pile up in greater volume. Even if customer response automation is introduced, customer satisfaction will not improve if the system merely repeats answers without authority. Technology can reduce work, but when used poorly, it creates new work.
Therefore, when the four-day workweek and artificial intelligence are combined, the order matters. Work must be organized first, and then automated. Organizations must distinguish what is core work, what is repetitive work, what can be eliminated, and what should remain under human judgment. Only then should artificial intelligence be applied. Automating work that should be deleted is not innovation. It is the acceleration of waste.
There is an even larger issue. Artificial intelligence can become a tool that supports shorter working hours, but it can also become a tool of surveillance and speed pressure. If employee response speed, workload, screen activity, and document output are measured excessively, shorter working hours may turn into stronger control. The number of working days may shrink, but the density of surveillance during work may increase. This clashes with the purpose of the four-day workweek.
The key question in the future will not be “Has artificial intelligence been introduced?” but “To whom is the time saved by artificial intelligence returned?” If the breathing room created by technology is absorbed into additional corporate work demands, workers will not feel its benefits. By contrast, if that time returns to rest, learning, creative work, and caregiving, technology becomes a driving force for shorter working hours. Artificial intelligence does not make the future of work better by itself. Only organizations that decide which tasks should be handed over to machines and which time should be returned to people will benefit from it.
In Korean Organizations, the Four-Day Workweek Is a Cultural Reform
In Korea, shorter working hours carry a more complex meaning. It is clear that working hours have decreased compared with the past, but the cultural residue of long working hours remains strong. People who stay late appear diligent, the practice of leaving only after one’s superior has left still remains, and leaving work early can sometimes become an object of subtle pressure. In many organizations, informal atmosphere operates more strongly than official systems.
The reason the four-day workweek is difficult in Korean organizations is not simply that there is too much work. It is because the way work is done has been designed around time. In many organizations, important decisions go upward before coming back down. Working-level employees prioritize confirmation over judgment, while managers prefer control over delegation. Meetings function more as a way to read the atmosphere and report than as a means of solving problems. A significant portion of work is directed not toward customers or the market, but toward internal approval structures. In such a structure, reducing working hours does not reduce work. Instead, the same inefficiency is pushed into a shorter period of time.
The greatest risk of a Korean-style four-day workweek is that the burden of compression will be shifted onto individuals. Officially, people may take one day off, but in reality, work messages continue during weekday evenings and holidays. The organization calls it autonomy, but employees extend their own work under performance pressure. Managers do not officially order overtime, but they do not reduce the amount of work. This creates a gap between the system and reality. In the end, employees become more exhausted, and the organization may conclude that the four-day workweek “does not suit us after all.”
Therefore, in Korea, shorter working hours must be combined with work redesign. Before introducing the system, organizations must first spread out the map of work. How many recurring meetings are there? Who reads the reports? How many approval stages exist? How much time do working-level employees spend waiting? Where does duplicate data entry occur? How much internal work is unrelated to customer value? Reducing working hours is not only a labor law issue. It is also a matter of drawing a map of work.
Small and medium-sized companies and service industries require an especially detailed approach. Not every industry can solve the issue simply by reducing meetings and reports, as large corporate office jobs might. In areas where continuity of time is important, such as customer response, production lines, hospitals, logistics, caregiving, and education, simple four-day workweek models must be combined with shift design, additional staffing, redistribution of peak hours, work standardization, and digital support. The same form of the four-day workweek cannot be applied to every organization. But the common principle is the same. To reduce time, waste must be found first.
There Is More Than One Way for Friday to Disappear
In the future, the four-day workweek is more likely to spread in various hybrid forms than as a uniform system in which all organizations take Fridays off. Some organizations will experiment with a four-day, thirty-two-hour week. Some will adopt a four-day week every other week. Some will choose a half-day Friday. Others may implement shorter hours only in summer or provide recovery weeks after major projects are completed. There will not be a single answer. The system will branch into multiple forms.
This change is inevitable because of differences across industries. Work based on outputs, such as software development, design, planning, research, and consulting, is relatively easier for four-day workweek experiments. By contrast, work that requires continuity in the field, such as hospitals, manufacturing, logistics, education, and caregiving, must be combined with shift systems and staffing design. Therefore, the future four-day workweek is likely to become not one system, but a bundle of multiple time models.
In Korea as well, transitional models such as the four-and-a-half-day week, one Friday off per month, focused work weeks and recovery weeks, and optional reduced work schedules are likely to spread before a complete four-day workweek becomes common. What matters is not the name. The real issue is whether actual working hours are reduced, whether workload is adjusted together with those hours, and whether rest time is protected from intrusion. A system that only looks like a four-day workweek must be distinguished from one that actually changes people’s lives.
In this process, differences between companies may become more visible. Some companies will use shorter working hours as an opportunity for talent acquisition and productivity innovation. Others will treat them only as a cost burden. The former will redesign work, while the latter will try to reduce time while maintaining the existing way of working. Over time, the difference between the two organizations will be revealed not by the number of working days, but by the difference in how they work.
What matters more than whether the four-day workweek becomes universal is that time experiments will become routine. In the future, companies are likely to stop seeing the five-day workweek as the only natural standard and begin combining various work models according to the nature of work and the composition of the workforce. The standard timetable of labor will split from one model into several. At the center of that change is not simply the expansion of rest, but the pressure to design performance and recovery together.
Time Sovereignty Will Become a Condition of a Good Job
In the future, good jobs will not be explained only by salary and stability. Time sovereignty is likely to become an important standard. The quality of a job will be determined by when people work, when they rest, and to what extent their right to be disconnected is protected. Younger generations, in particular, are likely to value predictability and autonomy of time as much as salary.
Time sovereignty is not the same as remote work or flexible work. Even with remote work, time sovereignty is low if a person is tied to workplace messages all day. Even with flexible work, if workload remains the same, the person eventually works at night. Real time sovereignty is possible only when workload, expected response time, meeting culture, and evaluation methods change together. The four-day workweek may become the system that reveals time sovereignty most clearly.
For companies as well, time sovereignty will become a talent acquisition strategy. Highly skilled workers may no longer find organizations attractive if those organizations demand unlimited commitment. They will try to choose organizations that respect their focus and recovery, reduce unnecessary work, and evaluate people by results. In the end, the four-day workweek will move from a competition over benefits to a competition over organizational operating capability.
The reason time sovereignty matters cannot be explained only by the old phrase “work-life balance.” People do not recover simply because they have more nonworking time. They need predictable time, uninterrupted time, and time they can choose for themselves. If messages keep coming even on days off, if responses are expected after work, and if weekends are spent preparing for the next week’s work, working hours may appear to have decreased, but life does not change.
In the future, good jobs will be evaluated not only by “how much they pay,” but also by “how much they respect time.” Salary will remain important, but organizations that ignore the quality of time may find it difficult to retain talent for long. The more creativity and problem-solving ability matter in a job, the less sustainable work becomes without recovery. Time sovereignty is not a benefit. It is a condition of productivity.
Shorter Work Will Spread Into Questions of Low Birthrates and Local Economies
The effects of shorter working hours do not appear only inside companies. When one day is reduced, the arrangement of life changes. Time with family, caregiving, learning, exercise, local activities, consumption patterns, travel, self-development, and rest are all affected. The four-day workweek changes the individual timetable, and when individual timetables gather, the timetable of cities and industries also changes.
In Korea, shorter working hours are likely to become more strongly connected with low birthrates, caregiving, and local economies. The difficulty of having and raising children is not only a matter of housing prices or education costs. Lack of time is also a major issue. In a structure where people leave work late, barely recover on weekends, and must handle caregiving and work at the same time, family formation becomes difficult. Shorter working hours are not a magic solution that will immediately raise the birthrate, but they can become an important condition for recovering the time needed for life.
Changes also occur within the home. Long working hours tend to concentrate caregiving and housework responsibilities on certain people. When working hours are reduced, the redistribution of caregiving may become possible. Of course, this does not happen automatically. If gender roles remain unchanged even when rest time increases, one person may rest more while another person cares more. Therefore, shorter working hours must be connected with gender equality, family policy, and caregiving infrastructure.
Local economies may also change. If three days of rest become possible, nearby travel, regional stays, lifestyle-oriented leisure, adult education, and use of neighborhood commercial districts may increase. Some consumption centered on big-city offices may be dispersed, and a new Friday economy may form. Of course, this will not happen automatically. Local transportation, accommodation, cultural facilities, and public services must be prepared together.
Reducing working hours is ultimately a matter of redistributing society’s time. It is about dividing time once taken by companies among individuals, families, regions, learning, and health. If this change succeeds, it becomes not just labor policy but life policy. If it fails, it will remain a new benefit for only some office workers. The real ripple effect of the four-day workweek appears after the office doors close. How people use the time they regain will change the shape of the next society.
The Same Four-Day Workweek Will Not Come to Everyone
There is also a reason not to view the future of shorter working hours only with optimism. The four-day workweek is unlikely to arrive for all workers at the same speed. High-income knowledge workers, technology companies, professionals, some public institutions, and highly productive large companies may adopt it first. By contrast, small and medium-sized companies suffering from labor shortages, customer-facing service industries, caregiving work, logistics, and manufacturing sites may find adoption much more difficult.
This difference can create a new labor divide. Groups that are already advantaged in wages and benefits may gain greater benefits in time as well, while vulnerable workers remain tied to long hours and unstable schedules. The more the four-day workweek is praised as a future-oriented work system, the greater the sense of deprivation may become among workers who cannot enjoy it. Therefore, shorter working hours cannot be left only to corporate choice. They must be discussed together with industry characteristics, labor supply, wage structures, public services, and caregiving systems.
In caregiving and service sectors especially, simply reducing time can increase someone else’s labor. In work that requires the presence of people, such as hospitals, nursing care, childcare, education, customer response, and logistics, automation alone cannot solve the problem. To introduce the four-day workweek in these areas, additional staffing, improved shift systems, wage protection, adjustment of service hours, and public support are needed. Otherwise, the system becomes rest for some and heavier workload for others.
Differences by company size are also important. Large companies have the capacity to handle work redesign, technology adoption, and staff reassignment. By contrast, in small and medium-sized companies, one person often performs multiple roles, so the absence of even one day can immediately lead to operational disruption. Therefore, discussing shorter working hours in small and medium-sized companies requires support for productivity improvement, shared talent pools, digital transformation support, and industry-specific standard work improvements. Reducing working hours is not something that can be achieved by declaration alone. It is also a question of who bears the cost of implementation.
At this point, the role of policy becomes important. If the government simply chooses to reduce statutory working hours, the burden on workplaces may increase. If it does nothing, only some leading companies may enjoy the four-day workweek while the rest fall behind. A more realistic approach is gradual experimentation and the development of industry-specific models. This means operating pilot programs in specific industries, supporting work redesign consulting, providing productivity improvement tools, and measuring worker health and corporate performance together. A system should not be pushed through all at once. It must become more precise through learning in the field.
The Four-Day Workweek Is Not a Future Reward, but a Present Question
The four-day workweek is not yet a completed answer that can be immediately applied to every organization. Conditions differ by industry, capacity differs by company size, and workers differ in the time models they want. Yet the questions posed by the four-day workweek have already become impossible to avoid. Why do we work this long? Are we producing better results in proportion to the length of time we work? Is the time spent on meetings, reports, and approvals truly necessary? Will employee recovery be treated as a cost, or as a condition of productivity?
Reducing working hours may look like a system that reduces the quantity of labor, but in reality it is a system that asks about the quality of work. The four-day workweek is not an experiment in removing one day. It is an experiment in removing waste. It demands that organizations do more important work with less time. To meet this demand, companies must reduce meetings and reports, delegate authority, change performance standards, and use technology properly. The answer is not to pressure employees to work faster. The organization itself must change so that it works less foolishly.
The debate over shorter working hours will grow in the future. Some will worry about declining productivity, while others will expect the recovery of life. But the real issue is not support or opposition. It is the difference between prepared and unprepared organizations. In prepared organizations, the four-day workweek can become an opportunity to raise focus, recovery, and productivity together. In unprepared organizations, it may end in compressed work, dissatisfaction, and the retreat of the system.
Ultimately, the essence of the four-day workweek is not rest, but design. Reducing time is not easy. But the more difficult task is abandoning the inertia of working long hours. Organizations that survive in the era of shorter working hours will not be those that demand more time from employees. They will be those that change the structure of work so better results can be achieved with less time. Future competitiveness will not be determined by how long the lights stay on. It will be determined by how little is wasted and how deeply people work while the lights are on.
Reference
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