New York
CNN
—
Burnout is such an issue for employees that some bosses are contemplating shrinking the size of the workweek.
Almost one-third (30%) of enormous US firms are exploring new work schedule shifts akin to four-day or four-and-a-half-day workweeks, based on a KPMG survey of CEOs launched this week.
The findings present how some executives are trying to find methods to draw and retain expertise in a purple sizzling job market the place many workers really feel over-worked and underpaid.
“We’re all working to determine what is perfect, and we are going to proceed to experiment and pivot,” Paul Knopp, chair and CEO of KPMG US, advised CNN in an interview.
Many employees say they might love a shorter work week.
A full 77% of US workers stated a four-day, 40-hour workweek would have a optimistic affect on their wellbeing, based on a Gallup ballot launched in November. That features 46% who stated it could have an “extraordinarily optimistic” impact.
The excellent news for employees is that some research of four-day workweeks in the USA and Europe have discovered optimistic outcomes for well-being and productiveness amongst employees.
Nonetheless, Knopp stated it could be untimely to definitively say this strategy is gaining traction.
“It’s method too early to declare the four-day work week a part of the longer term. It’s nonetheless within the experimentation section,” he stated.
CEOs are nonetheless making an attempt to know how such an strategy would work, how it could affect the psychological and bodily well being of workers and whether or not it drives down prices by creating more healthy environments.
Some firms which have experimented with shorter workweeks are sticking with it.
In the UK, a large majority of companies that took half on the planet’s greatest trial of a four-day workweek had been nonetheless letting workers work a shorter week a yr later. Greater than half had even made the change everlasting.
After all, a shorter workweek could not work in all places.
Knopp stated that whereas a four-day workweek may make sense in finance, advertising and another workplace jobs, it could not in industries like healthcare the place there are labor shortages.
“My guess is a widespread four-day workweek may very well be years away – if ever,” he stated. “You’ll see firms quietly experimenting with it, however I don’t personally foresee widespread adoption within the subsequent couple of years.”
Nonetheless, Knopp stated synthetic intelligence could enable bosses to embrace shorter workweeks as a result of the expertise ought to make employees extra environment friendly.
Not solely can AI automate mundane and routine duties akin to constructing displays, crafting emails and writing stories, sooner or later it’ll get higher at much more complicated actions.
“It’s potential that generative AI would possibly make the four-day workweek extra real looking,” Knopp stated.
The truth is, the KPMG survey discovered that 61% of US CEOs are encouraging workers to make use of generative AI to automate mundane duties to alleviate stress and handle their workloads.
And in a win for employees, bosses look like dialing again their calls for for employees to return to full-time in-office work.
Simply 34% of the US CEOs polled by KPMG stated they envision company workers who had been historically based mostly within the workplace to be again within the bodily office 5 days every week within the subsequent three years. That’s down from 62% only a yr in the past.
As a substitute, 46% of CEOs see these roles being hybrid (up from 34% in 2023), and three% count on them to be totally distant, KPMG stated.
“The views of workers haven’t modified. They need extra flexibility. Now there’s extra recognition from CEOs that hybrid is right here to remain,” Knopp stated.