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Could 4 day workweeks save the planet?
Posted By katie allison granju
The idea isn’t new one. The oil crisis of the 1970s prompted some employers to switch to a four-day work week, but the idea never took hold nationally.
These days, though, energy and congestion issues may give the concept more traction. Several petition drives for a shortened work week are now circulating on the Internet.
A handful of cities in Nevada, California and Arizona are experimenting with the idea.
The state of West Virginia is considering a four-day week for government workers there.
Working four days instead of five would mean 20 percent fewer trips to and from work, reducing oil consumption by an estimated 40 percent. That’s about 65 million fewer gallons of gas used per day, not to mention more time with family…Marion County Florida recently switched to a four-day work week for county workers. They expect to save $250,000 in energy costs this year alone.
Apr 28th, 2008
I am a huge advocate of telecommuting. The US Patent Office encourages its staff to work from home giving permission and paying for high speed Internet access to employees who meet certain requirements on annual performance reviews. Telecommuting has some issues with regard to managers who like to micromanage and to employees with self-discipline but both can be addressed by training. Telecommuting can reduce infrastructure need (smaller offices to accommodate fewer onsite employees) which results in less electrical usage, less gas burned on commuting, more quality time spent with family (or additional work hours) rather than time wasted commuting, and so forth. Many jobs including customer service, tech support, accounting, some management, programming, etc can easily be done via telecommuting.
That said, I would be largely in favor of a 4 day work week!
I wholeheartedly support telecommuting as well. In fact I’ve been doing it for three years now and have met many others, at least virtually, who do so as well. Knoxville could do some catching up here.