The 40-hour work week has always been trending in most of the workplaces for a long time. But, in the past decades, the world has changed a lot, especially after the spread of coronavirus, the working trends and norms have transformed.  40-hour work week is getting non-functional in most of the firms these days. But the question is, what will be the best replacement for this traditional working pattern?

Before searching for substitutes of 40-hour work week, have you ever thought about what a 40-hour work week model is? Why it is considered a standard for a professional since long ago? Where did this concept originate? What of its features is making it redundant in the firms now?

Let’s have a quick overview of the facts about 40-hour work week.

What is a 40-hour work week?

The 40-hour work week is measured as the standard amount of time an employee has to work for its corporation in a week.

Background of 40-hour work week

The 40-hour work week is fixed as a working standard for employees in 19^th century.

• In 1817, the labor unions united to demand reforms in employment conditions because people worked 80 to 100 hours per week for their organizations.
• In 1866, the National Labor Union filed a petition to Congress for the eight-hours workday as a law. As the Congress didn’t agree for this law, it moved more people to support the labor reforms.
• In 1869, President Ulysses S. announced an eight-hour workday for the government employees, which encouraged the private sector employees to demand the same rights.
• In 1886, the Illinois Legislature passed a law for eight-hour workdays for this year only. But, a massive crowd of employees refused this law and held a strike in Chicago. A bomb exploded on this crowd, and 12 people were killed. It resulted in Haymarket Riot and is now observed as a public holiday for ‘May Day’ on 1^st of May every year.
• In 1926, Henry Ford introduced the 40-hour work week. After research, he concluded that working more than 40 hours per week has less impact on productivity.
• In 1938, a revolutionary law was passed by Congress, known as the Fair Labor Standards Act, stating that all the employees who work for more than 44 hours will be paid overtime for their work. After two years, they amended the act to reduce the work week up to 40 hours.
• In 1940, the 40-hour work week became a permanent part of U.S. law.

Productivity of 40-hour work week

The productivity of 40-hour work week model depends on an employee’s capabilities. Most companies standardize the 40-hour work week model as eight-hour workdays, five days per week for all the employees. But is this rule effective for each employee?

Each person has their way of working. Besides it, many other factors like a person’s life stressors, his skill level make it difficult to set the same productivity level for all employees. To know the effectiveness of a 40-hour work week, we must understand how an employee utilizes those eight hours per day in the workplace. Let’s have a rundown of some facts and figures on it.

• According to a recent survey from AtTask, this is how the employees spend their eight-hour per day at work:
• 45% of the time is consumed in primary job duties.
• 40% of it is passed in meetings, administrative tasks and ‘other interruptions.’
• 14% of it is spent on E-mails.

• Christopher Barnes, an associate professor at the University of Washington, says that an average worker is productive only for almost three hours a day.

A study of 2,000 full-time employees authenticates this research. It shows that out of 8 hours, i.e. 480 minutes of work, an employee is productive for less than half of this time for the office work, and the rest of the time is passed in following the activities.

• 60 to 65 minutes in reading news websites.
• 44 minutes on social media.
• 40 minutes in gossiping with coworkers.
• 26 minutes in searching a new job.
• 23 minutes for smoking breaks.
• 18 minutes on phone calls to friends or partners.
• 17 minutes while making hot drinks.
• 14 minutes in messaging.
• 8 minutes in snacking.
• 7 minutes on food preparation at the office.

These statistics show that most employees do not achieve 100% productivity in a 40- hour work week at their workplace. But, a few diversions help in the refreshing of mind, which increases an employee’s focus. The creativity level of employees is also enhanced by increasing the workplace wellbeing and making it a better place for employees to work.

Case study supporting 40 – hour work week strategy

A New Zealand based financial services company, Perpetual Guardians, claims a 20% improvement in their throughput after applying a 40 – hour work week. They said that more companies should stick to it to see a surprising increase in their company’s efficiency and staff and improvement in their wider community. After implementing the 40 – hour work week, the employees’ stress level is decreased by 7% and it also helped increase the employee well-being.

Another case study on an American company shows the following results for the productivity of 40-hour work week.

It shows that the company achieved its maximum throughput when the employees worked eight hours a day, five days per week.

Pros of 40- hour work week

• It reduces the stress on an employee due to fixed working hours.
• Reduction in work time contributes to higher productivity.
• Employees will work in a more relaxed environment resulting in the timelier deliveries of the projects.
• The commute cost is saved.

Cons of 40 – hour work week

• The advent of technology is making this hour system non-functional for many industries.
• These fixed short time slots lead to low-quality work when there is more work in a short span.
• It discourages teamwork as each employee wants to work alone according to their comfort zone and does not want to work with coworkers.
• As ladies are also into workplaces these days, so if both the partners are working according to 40 – hour work week, they may have less family time, leading to clashes in the relationships.

Alternatives to 40 hours work week

As virtual machines and technology have taken over the world, we should move on to a new and improved workplace strategy. Some of these strategies that can replace 40-hour work week are as follows:

·      Flextime

It provides the employees with the option of designing their own work schedules, ensuring that they are present in the official meetings and activities.

·      Telework

Telework is a better option for employees who don’t want to work a regular 40-hour week. It allows the employees to work one to five days a week from home or anywhere remotely.

·      Compressed work week

A compressed work week consists of four ten-hour days instead of five eight-hour days. It benefits the employees to save one extra day from work. It also helps them to save income by lowering their commute costs.

·      32-hour work week

This strategy allows the employees to work for eight hours each day for four days a week while still having their full salaries. This approach accelerates business productivity while enhancing the employees’ competencies.

Conclusion

In the recent era, companies are experimenting with more standard workplace structures to increase the efficiency of their businesses.  HR Consultancy firms suggest increasing employee engagement to improve organizational effectiveness, so it’s not just about being flexible in working hours.  At the end of the day, it is all about aligning the values of the employees with the company’s needs and requirements.

Kazakhstan is still a relatively young country, about to celebrate 30 years of independence in December, but it has already established a successful innovation ecosystem with the support of government Ministries and often as a result of its First President’s initiatives.  There is no doubt it has the advantage of learning from the best practice of other countries and when you visit its capital, Nur-Sultan, you soon become aware of the scale of its development and ambition for the future.  It is most definitely a country that a UK start-up should have on its radar either as part of its international expansion plans or in terms of the interesting start-ups to be found. Here we take a look at some of the key players.

The Astana Hub which was launched by the First President in 2018 is the largest technopark for IT start-ups in Central Asia.  Its aim is to develop a start-up culture, supporting high-tech projects to strengthen Kazakhstan’s economy.  With various arms it includes a hub space as a corporate business incubator aimed at the development of IT projects.  As of October 2021, Astana Hub includes 555 companies, 54 of which are foreign.  The Astana Hub works and cooperates with local venture funds including QAZTECH Ventures, Quest Ventures, Most Ventures and Qazangels Business Angels Network.  It also cooperates with international organisations including Rutec Ventures and Unbound Innovations both in the UK.

Another initiative of the First President is the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), which was launched in 2018, is the newest financial centre in the world and the only one in Central Asia.  It has its own law, based on English law, and its own court and arbitrage.  There are 1,000 companies registered at AIFC from more than 50 countries, including some from the UK, and its particular areas of interest are in Islamic finance, fintech and green finance.  The AIFC Green Finance Centre was created to enable the development of green finance in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Green finance refers to investments and other financial instruments such as green and social bonds, concessional lending and subsidies for green projects, which are aimed at delivering environmentally friendly, energy efficient and low carbon projects.   As a regional think-tank, the AIFC Green Finance Centre also provides strategic and business consulting in green finance and sustainable development.  It established the first Green Finance Awards in the region and the Green Finance team from AIFC recently held a COP26 event in Glasgow.

Also to be found within the AIFC family is the Tech Hub which helps brings new tech initiatives to Kazakhstan, soft lands them and then builds up new economy streams for the country by building the tech development stream and ecosystem to support these companies and “connecting the dots” with the different Ministries.  There is currently a strong focus on b2b tech including fintech, such as Kaspi which is already known outside Kazakhstan, and b2gov or govtech companies. 

Land-linked not land-locked

One of the attractions of Kazakhstan must surely be its country neighbours and location, which sees for example the Baikonur cosmodrome based in Southern Kazakhstan which is leased to Russia, and there is also a strong presence from Chinese banks as well as the EBRD and Eurasia Bank.   President Shigeo Katsu of Nazarbayev University has a very good description of the country “not as land-locked but as land-linked”.

Without doubt, the University is one of the institutions turning out an educated graduate base to fill the growing employment opportunities in the country.  Nazarbayev University which is also known for its Nazarbayev University Research and Innovtion System (NURIS) focused on high-tech business creation and includes an incubator and business accelerator, offering a 12 week programme and potential investment.  Since 2016, the Cluster has supported 157 start-ups and provided $1m in grants.  It has staged over 3,000 events, 80 hackathons and has future plans for an Astana Business Campus Science Park. 

In summary, Kazakhstan is worth a look – perhaps precisely because it is not yet that well known outside Central Asia in terms of its start-up and entrepreneurial ecosystem.  Air Astana, which is an extremely successful business with two shareholders the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan and BAE Systems PLC operates direct flights from London, won the Skytrax Best Airline in Central Asia Award 2021 and flies to 45 domestic and international destinations.  Peter Foster, Air Astana’s President describes Kazakhstan as “an emerging market with some challenges but it is open for business and very anglophile.  You have to be all in in Kazakhstan otherwise you’re not in at all.”

A team is not only a group of people put together to work on a project, it’s important to make sure the team members work together so the whole team can be more effective, efficient, and productive in achieving its goals. 

However, building a cohesive team is often a tricky task. While work team building activities can certainly be effective, relying on overused activities can be counterproductive, leading to team members feeling demoralized and even embarrassed due to the cliché. 

Every team is unique, and every team member is also unique, so it’s crucial to choose work team building activities that are the right fit for your team’s specific needs and preferences.

In this guide, we will discuss how. 

Benefits of Work team Building Activities

1. Building camaraderie and cohesiveness

A very common issue in teamwork is the lack of or poor communication between different team members. Your team members may come from different backgrounds, and for remote employees, language and cultural barriers can also be an issue.

When implemented properly, team building activities can help break down barriers, build camaraderie, and develop communication skills in individual employees. Various team building activities are designed for team members to learn more about one another, which can be crucial in the long run. 

2. Repair broken relationships and strengthen healthy ones

Workplace relationships are always dynamic and are prone to conflicts. 

Again, your team may consist of people with different working styles, personalities, and priorities, so team building activities can be a great way to break down barriers, repair conflicts, and strengthen already-working relationships. 

Team members with better relationships are more likely to collaborate with each other and help each other in achieving collective goals.

3. Better customer service

Happy and satisfied employees are more likely to provide better services to customers and/or make better contributions in delivering a better product, which in turn will lead to better customer service. 

4. Improved productivity

When your team members work together as a cohesive team, they’ll naturally be able to accomplish more than the sum of their individual efforts. When implemented correctly, work team-building activities can help facilitate cooperation and collaboration in your team. 

Work Team Building Activities: Best Practices

As discussed, work team building activities are only effective when they are done right. If not, they can be counterproductive and may discourage and demoralize your team instead. 

With that being said, here are some best practices to follow: 

Know your goals ASAP

What is the purpose of the work team building exercise? 

You are going to use your employees’ valuable time for these activities, so it’s important to make sure they are purpose-driven. Don’t do team building activities just for the sake of having some fun or taking a break, but these activities should be designed to solve clear business challenges: resolving conflicts within a team, onboarding a new employee, and so on. 

Know your participants

Different team members may have different preferences and needs: some may be more ongoing in nature, but some may be more introverted.

Choose an activity that is inclusive for all participants so everyone can actively participate. For example, if there are some of your employees with physical disabilities, avoid activities that are physically challenging. 

In general, work team building activities should be challenging enough to engage the participants, but they shouldn’t potentially leave out, or worse, humiliate participants. 

Time it well

As a general rule of thumb, the work team building activities should not take your employees’ valuable time so they have to compensate with extra hours, also, they should occur during normal business hours.

Monitor your employees’ workloads, and plan the event during the least busy time in your schedule. Revise deadlines and invest in temporary staff if necessary to maximize participation. 

Also, check vacation schedules, so the team building activity doesn’t happen when too many members of your team are on their day-offs. 

Monitor and evaluate

Monitor the execution of the activities, and evaluate how your team performs after the activity is over. Check whether there are any positive reinforcements in your team’s or individual employee’s performance based on the objective(s) of the activity. 

Collect feedback from participants so you can gather valuable insights about the activity and your team’s thoughts about it. 

Evaluate whether the team building activity has a lasting effect in weeks and even months after the activity, and assess what’s working (and what’s not) so you can design your future activities better. 

Encourage collaboration

Many work team building activities are competitive in nature, but it’s crucial to remind participants that these activities are designed to improve teamwork and collaboration, and they shouldn’t focus on winning the competition alone. 

To tackle this issue, it’s generally better to choose activities that encourage participants to work together in teams to solve a problem. Or, if it’s a competitive activity, break down participants into teams so they’ll still need to collaborate with their designated team.

Go offsite when you can

If possible, organize the team building activities offsite so your team can “escape” the confines of your office. A new environment may encourage participants to more freely communicate and share with others. This doesn’t have to be too complex: go to the nearest park (for outdoor activities), and you can book an offsite meeting space for indoor activities. 

Consistency is key

When an activity brings positive results, you may want to plan it as a regular event. Consistency is key if you want your activities to produce lasting effects. However, don’t conduct the activity too often, or your employees might get bored with it. 

Closing Thoughts

Whatever the work team building activities you plan, ideas won’t really matter without the right execution, and this is why it’s crucial to have Eventtia to help you plan, manage, and seamlessly implement the work team building activities with ease. With Eventtia, you can effectively plan your event, monitor and track participants’ participation during the activities, and more. 

By following the tips and guidelines we’ve shared above, you are now ready to plan an effective work team building activities program for your team to improve their morale, cohesiveness, and ultimately, productivity.