Will you vote for a five-day work week?

More and more people are giving importance to ‘me only’ time says Taru Bahl

Are you willing to work on weekends?”asks a tough looking interviewer on the “Hear what you want to hear” television advertisement of Tata Docomo. The first-time job seeker mutters a tentative “No.” After a pregnant pause, the interviewer announces, “in that case, you are hired!”

The five-day work culture has been around since the ’60s. Henry Ford brought in a five-day, eight-hour work schedule in the US, while paying employees for a six-day week. His logic was not based on philanthropy alone but on a strong business case. According to him, giving people more personal time would translate into them searching for greater leisure, entertainment and consumption options. They would spend more, eat more, travel more, buy more and commute more which for him, meant buying more cars. In India, credit for initiating this along with other employee-friendly initiatives such as awarding overtime to workers goes to the Tata group.

In China, the five-day work culture was brought into effect in 1995, supplemented with an altered television schedule that had a greater entertainment-focused programming mix. The end result? Weekend travel peaked. The thrice-a-year “golden weeks”, which are three sets of week-long vacations, also contributed to a growing tourism industry in China.

Indians have traditionally been known to sweat it out, even over weekends. They are the first to volunteer to work on holidays, especially if promised an extra compensatory allowance. Offensive as it may sound, in many workplaces around the world, when asked to work on an urgent project over the weekend, some reply, “Sorry, we have plans, but why don’t you ask an Indian?”

When travelling to an outstation location for a training programme or conference, the itineraries of an European or American would most likely indicate a Monday to Friday programme or meetings scheduled from Tuesday to Thursday, to protect the weekend. We, on the other hand, are far less likely to think twice about travelling on a Sunday, cancelling personal engagements and getting in earlier to set things up, get a feel of the place and be better prepared.

Sure, it’s a good thing to be committed to one’s work or even go beyond the call of duty. But in the pursuit of a newly-defined happiness, workaholics too are beginning to see merit in having a weekend off — to finish odd jobs, spend time with the children, pursue a sport or catch up on sleep. And many opt to work from home, to be at least a step closer to bringing that elusive balance back in their life.

The tougher task would be for those of us who allow work to define our existence, to figure out what to do in those free hours. Many have had to struggle to make ends meet or pay back a loan, in the process forsaking what we may term ‘legitimate’ leisure. But judging by what employees want now and what employers are willing to give, this seems to be a trend of the past. In the present, we are learning to ‘have a life’ and not feel guilty about it.