Friday I’m at home

Those calling for the working week to be shortened even further so that employees can attain a better work-life balance are becoming increasingly loud and insistent. The benefits for organisations are supposed to include improved productivity, with the assumption being that given less time to complete a given task we actually work faster, we set out our priorities are duties better, and we think through our business decisions more efficiently.

Organisations have been experimenting for some time with various different models of the four-day working week. Some have been trialling a compressed model in which employees work for ten hours, four days a week, giving them an extra day off. Others are going a step further than this, offering full pay for fewer working hours, such as eight hours a day for four days. These approaches, which are being tested out in the form of pilot schemes by the divisions of certain global corporations, are currently being considered in some countries, such as Spain and the UK. A third possible model is a shorter working week with reduced pay but due to the similarity this has to part-time work, it is hard to call this a real four-day week.

But in Poland, a reduced working week is still not common. A study conducted by Hays shows that every tenth professional in the country has already experienced working under such a model. Nevertheless, for most Polish employees, the concept of a four-day week only exists in the imagination and the chances of setting up such a pilot programme across Poland any time soon remain small.

Those surveyed by Hays were enthusiastic about the prospect of working for four days a week, as long as this also entails a full salary. A total of 96 pct of specialists and managers regard this as a very attractive model. An offer of work that featured this would also be significantly attractive to 87 pct of specialists. But when it came to the compressed working week, where a full 40 hours is squeezed into four working days by requiring people to work ten hours a day, only 52 pct of those surveyed expressed a positive interest. Even reduced salaries, which was the least attractive option, would still be considered by every fifth of those surveyed, thus demonstrating that some specialists put a higher premium on their free time than on their salaries.

Wherever and whenever

The Hays survey also reveals that most organisations in Poland currently operate according to the hybrid model (42 pct). Of these, most have opted for two to three days per week of working in the office, but almost every fifth company allows for complete flexibility when it comes to where employees work. Workers have become accustomed to having more flexibility when it comes to the place they are working in and are unwilling to give this up. Among those who have different working options, 43 pct asserted that they would not accept a job offer that required them to work exclusively in the office. A similar situation could be expected were a company to return to working exclusively in the office, with 36 pct of employees stating they would look for another position while 43 pct would accept this change provided that additional conditions were met, such as higher wages, flexible working hours or additional perks.

The hybrid model of work with flexible hours and other benefits in terms of employees’ free time has now become the standard. Employers are currently going one step further by offering the ‘work from anywhere’ model. This is the concept of working remotely from anywhere in the world, and might in practice mean working in a permanent office, in a co-working facility, at home or even abroad. According to Hays, 35 pct of companies allow employees to work in this way. However, in practice not all employees are able to take advantage of such an approach. According to the survey, this is regarded as a privilege that can only be exercised by a specific group of employees or by those who have been able to negotiate it as part of their contract.

“The decision to shorten working hours is a sensitive topic for each company. Those organisations that are already undergoing changes are finding themselves in a crisis situation. They are struggling with low worker motivation, a lack of staff or technical deficiencies, and so they cannot afford to take radical steps in this regard, since this would put their operational effectiveness at risk,” points out Łukasz Grzeszczyk, the investors consulting and talent location strategy executive director for the CEE region at Hays Poland. “You also have to take into account the specifics of each individual industry and what characterises the professions within it. For some of them, shortening working hours would require more staff to be hired. In short, every decision to reduce working hours needs to be preceded by an in-depth study of the company’s situation that takes into account its operations and resources as well as the potential risks,” he adds.

Does it make economic sense?

Can we afford shorter working hours? This is one of the key questions that arises when it comes to the commercial real estate market. Similar questions also arise when considering the wider rollout of remote working, with some studies suggesting that putting such a model into practice too quickly could have a negative economic impact. Answers to such questions can at least partly be found by looking at the productivity figures and demographic trends in both Poland and across the world. According to the OECD’s data from 38 of its member countries, Poland is among the top ten hardest-working nations globally and is the fourth in Europe, only behind Greece, Malta and Cyprus.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the time we sacrifice to work in this country does not translate into an increase in added value for the economy, nor for ourselves – as can be seen from the productivity and salary data. Employees can take comfort in the fact that statistically we work almost 100 fewer hours a year than we did just 30 years ago. Among the reasons for the relatively low productivity across Poland and Europe are the lack of technological resources, bureaucracy in managing the economy, and the skills gaps.

Despite the differences that still exist between Poland and the richest countries, we can be optimistic due to the clear productivity growth of the country. If we take 2015 as our base, most European countries recorded a rise of over 10 pct by 2022, while Poland saw an improvement of 25 pct. Furthermore, according to a report by the Polish Economic Institute, the work productivity in medium-sized Polish firms only amounts to around EUR 30,000 per year for a single worker. This is almost half the EU average and a third of that of the best-performing EU member states. At the same time, a clear difference can be discerned between Western Europe and the CEE region. The former, and especially the Benelux countries, stand out with much higher productivity than the countries that acceded to the EU in 2004. Productivity rises as the number of large firms grow. whereas the average Polish company has productivity levels somewhat closer to smaller firms. The proportion of innovative companies in the overall number of medium-sized firms remains far below the EU average of 63 pct at just 37 pct, which is only better than Hungary and Romania.

In terms of the average weekly salary, Poland is the tenth lowest-earning nation in the OECD. Even though since 2000 this figure has seen a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2 pct, Poland still lags far behind other EU countries in this regard. Poles, for example, earn only 45 pct of what Americans do and 60 pct when compared to the Germans. When it comes to the CEE region, the situation looks a little better. The CEE countries, including the Baltic States, all follow similar trends in terms of the number of hours worked and average weekly earnings. In both respects, Poland stands at almost the top of the league in this part of Europe. We work the most, but our wages are only beaten by Lithuania. One bonus of the current situation is that Poland remains an attractive place to find talent at a competitive price compared to Western Europe. It is this trend that is to a large extent most likely the reason for the low unemployment rate.

What next?

Increased productivity due to AI tools and other new technology could make the implementation of a four-day working week in the office more feasible, but it’s doubtful whether this is going to happen any time soon. It would be an extremely complicated process and it’s much easier from an operational standpoint to introduce flexible working hours, which when combined with the option of remote work (or working from anywhere) should result in a win-win situation in the relationship between employer and employee. Regardless of the scenario, the future belongs to flexible offices as well as hybrid and decentralised work. There should also be more support for employees in terms of their well-being, which includes such factors as the air quality, smart lighting, ergonomic furniture, sustainable practices and designated rest areas, to name but a few. More projects are being developed to transform the purpose of existing buildings and space as well as its accompanying infrastructure. ESG issues and the introduction of an EU taxonomy that favours modern and environmentally-friendly buildings should play the role of an additional catalyst in this process.

All of this demonstrates that the future office will need to offer more than just a desk, while they also have to become more accessible, as far as this is possible. Only then will they be able to effectively compete with working from home or from somewhere else on the planet. Over the mid-term, we should expect more short-term lease contracts to be signed, because companies are now allocating their resources with a set number of employees in mind or for short-term projects. However, if the office becomes a technology-packed space, longer contracts will probably return with renewed vigour to secure system continuity and the security of operations.

“Before the revolutionary idea of a four-day working week is introduced on a wider scale, we first need to go back to its roots, which is the need for more flexibility and greater efficiency at work. Making such needs a reality in a human manner has created hybrid work, which allows people to freely and effectively combine their work and private lives,” points out Małgorzata Fibakiewicz, the office space leasing director at BNP Paribas Real Estate. “Forcing workers to return too early to an over-trodden path is the road to nowhere, whereas new models, such as the four-day working week, will free up more of our time in the future, making us even more effective,” she argues.

Is the four-day week a realistic proposition for other real estate sectors? At the moment, it seems hard to imagine shortening the working week when it comes, for example, to large format retail. While some branches of the economy could provide another free day (most likely, Friday), this is not true for the foreseeable future in the retail sector. Many brick-and-mortar stores and service centres only exist in response to the consumer demand and need to operate virtually every day. For this reason, a four-day working week of 40 hours would require major changes in how the work is organised in this sector. Further shortening working hours by eight hours would require the hiring of more people, which would further complicate the staffing issues in the retail sector, making them more difficult. However, the wider adoption of new technology and the greater automation of services will probably lead to new solutions that could in future partially remove the barriers and make it possible for a wider range of industries to implement flexible work or shorter working hours. In the catering sector, the situation is even more complex. Someone has to do this work, unless we eventually start preferring meals that are cooked and served by artificially intelligent robots, which is not an entirely fanciful scenario.

Furthermore, with the wider adoption of robotisation and the advent of Industry 4.0 in the warehouse and industrial sector, more scope is emerging for employees to work remotely, but, even in this sector, for many companies, especially those in manufacturing, introducing working from anywhere seems unrealistic – and this is even more the case with the four-day week. However, this could change with 3D printing, automation, the virtual rendering of real buildings and other technological advances. With the correct strategy, organisation, technology and – most importantly – leadership, such an approach could be adopted by many more companies, teams and operations than you might imagine. And it will provide another reason for the development of new types of warehouses and manufacturing plants.

A trip in the time machine

We have been speculating about the future of work and how humankind is set to develop since the dawn of civilisation; and, as is the case with other predictions, it’s hard to disagree with the notion that the commercial real estate market has many paths before it. Is the human race going to be able to enjoy a kind of unfettered freedom and a wider range of working possibilities thanks to modern technology? Will it free us from the economic imperative and the need to struggle to survive, allowing us to focus on our own leisure and pleasure? And will this result in a reduction in our productivity, turning us into something like the ineffectual Eloi from ‘The Time Machine’ by HG Wells? But maybe the complete opposite will come to pass and (as we hope) our creativity will be unleashed, generating new needs and increasing the demand for real estate suited to this new lifestyle. Only time will tell.

Many thanks to BNP Paribas Real Estate for permitting publication of sections of its report. The title of the article, its subheadings and abbreviations are the work of the editorial staff