After the pandemic, Friday became international remote work day. Many information workers seem to have quietly reached a four-day work week, writes HS Vision editor Sonia Zaki.
Purpose was to go to the pub. I was in London in November to meet two of my local friends. We arranged a date in Islington. On a street with lots of pubs and restaurants.
But they were all packed to the brim. People who couldn't sit down stood with drinks in hand. In one pub, getting to the counter required pushing through a crowd of people. We got the seats from the smoking area.
I wondered about the crowd to my friends. It's Thursday after all!
Thursday is the new Friday, my friend said.
No one anymore for real work on Fridays, he continued. Another friend of mine nodded along.
Both are knowledge workers in their twenties in prestigious international companies. According to them, the corona period made the four-day work week a reality for knowledge workers like them.
On Thursday to the bar, on Friday moving the computer mouse from your own bed.
Similar there are observations from other places as well.
The British newspaper Financial Times published last September the thingwhich dealt with the lazy Fridays of knowledge workers.
“
Very few dare to talk about their laziness, especially in public.
Friday is just a dead day, the title stated.
It was a quote from a Stanford University economics professor interviewed for the story From Nick Bloom. He's looking into telecommuting.
According to Bloom, the pandemic changed the work culture of the US corporate world. When remote work started to move to hybrid models, some employers required employees to come to the office on Fridays. We didn't want the weekend to stretch to three days.
However, the labor shortage that shook several sectors shifted the balance of power towards the employees, and according to Bloom, some of the employees have been able to stick to remote Friday.
It has made it possible for some to have “more flexible working hours”.
An analyst working on Wall Street who was also interviewed for the story described his more flexible Friday like this:
“I log into Teams, check emails, and then live my life.”
“We only carry work phones with us in case something comes up.”
Did I see? it happened?
The four-day work week has been fought for years. And now some knowledge workers seem to have quietly achieved it, at least in Britain and the United States.
What about in Finland?
It is difficult to grasp the scale of the phenomenon. Very few dare to talk about their laziness, especially in public.
“
“Fridays are remote days,” Finanssiveli said.
With the help of phone location data, you can find out how people move in office buildings on different days of the week. But that doesn't really say anything about productivity.
Director of research institute Labore Mika Maliranta has heard of the phenomenon. However, there is no research data in Finland about the fact that some knowledge workers would avoid work on Fridays.
“I don't have any smoking gun. But I would be surprised if it wasn't.”
Maliranta justifies his view by the fact that technologies facilitating remote work are now widely used in Finland as well, and there has been a shortage of workers in the mathematical-scientific-technical stem fields. It has changed the power relations between the employee and the employer in the workplace to the benefit of the employee.
I also asked about twenty of my friends to tell the truth about their Friday working days for this article. The sample is not comprehensive, but offers a small glimpse into whether Finnish workplaces are lazy on Fridays.
My friends are information workers in their twenties and thirties from Helsinki. Consultants, lawyers, coders.
Few of them recognized the phenomenon in their own work. Actually, on the contrary: according to many, the corona period increased the intensity of work. Especially those who do customer work said that there are more jobs than before the pandemic.
The work is done according to the schedule dictated by the customer. Monday through Friday.
A few said they secretly go jogging in the middle of the remote work day. One stated that he rarely works more than six hours at home.
Some work even more, others less.
In September I interviewed the administrator of Finansvelje, a meme account parodying the working life of millennials.
We met on Thursday evening at the Kaarle XII bar in the center of Helsinki. Shy in Kalleas Finanssiveli says.
Ujot Kallet is one of Finansvellje's most famous memes. He satirizes how highly educated office workers flock to Kallee on Thursdays to relieve the pressures of working life. I have a hangover at work on Friday morning.
“Fridays are remote days,” Finanssiveli said.
Judging by how Kalle went
at the end of the evening, so did many others.
#Column #Thursday #bar #Friday #remote #work #bed #fourday #work #week
