South Korea trials 4-day weeks and half-days for its stressed-out workers

Go Kyoung-min, a nurse at Severance Hospital in Seoul, discovered a new sense of balance in her life in the first half of this year.

Go frequently felt bad about not having enough time with her children because of work because she was the mother of twin daughters born in 2021.

However, Go was able to spend more time with her family, attend daycares she had previously missed, and rely less on her in-laws for childcare after choosing the four-day workweek that her employer offered.

Severance is the first hospital in South Korea to offer a four-day workweek to its staff in an effort to improve their work-life balance.

Some hospital employees are permitted to take three days off per week in exchange for a 10% salary reduction under the program, which was introduced in 2023 following a labor-management agreement.

Staff members alternate between six-month rotations and return to a five-day week.

In a report about the trial released last month, the Korea Worker Institute-Union Center claimed that the program appeared to have improved nurses’ health and wellbeing, improved the quality of medical services, increased organizational efficiency, and reduced turnover rates.

According to the report, there was a decrease in turnover among participating nurses who had no more than three years of experience, from 19.5% to 7%.

During the trial, the average sick leave for employees decreased by one day, while the average sick leave for wards increased by 0.7 days on five-day weeks.

Go claimed that having a four-day workweek helped her be more focused and compassionate with her patients as well as improving her work-life balance.

“I work in a critical situation on the pancreatobiliary ward.” The workload is thus increased. I think I can spend more time listening to patients and giving them more responsibility, she said, according to Al Jazeera.

When their grandparents picked them up from daycare, my children were content, they used to think they were lucky. But they anticipated my presence once more when I did it.

In a nation known for its long working hours, where being late is frequently seen as a sign of good behavior, Go’s experience is unusual.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), South Korean workers worked an average of 1, 865 hours in 2024, which is higher than the OECD’s 1, 736 hours average.

They put in 248 more hours than their Japanese neighbors, who were in the opposite situation.

Shorter work hours are becoming more common in the private sector as longer workdays become a commonplace.

For the past several years, some businesses, particularly IT companies and startups, have been trying four-day or four-and-a-half-day workweeks.

Samsung Electronics, SK Group, and Kakao, one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates, have started programs that offer employees regular breaks of a full or half-day.

Lee Jae-ho, 42, a father of two who works for Kakao VX, a sports and health technology company, has benefited from one of these programs, which gives him one free day off each month and places him on rest for an additional 1.5 hours.

According to Lee, having fewer days off does not necessarily mean less efficiency.

According to Lee, “When I have a Friday off or work shorter hours, I adjust my schedule in advance,” reducing my workdays’ productivity.

I can recharge, have dinner with my family, and work on my growth and interests.

Since Lee Jae-myung’s victory in June as president of South Korea, the push to reform the workplace has gained momentum.

By 2030, Lee pledged to introduce a four-and-a-half day workweek and reduce working hours below the OECD average during his campaign.

Lee reiterated at a press conference in July that working fewer hours and reducing productivity was unsustainable.

According to Lee, “we have fought more based on quality than quantity.”

After previously offering employees every other Friday off, Cafe24, South Korea’s top e-commerce solution provider, started a full four-day workweek in July. The company also kept pay and overall hours.

The first pilot project of a four-and-a-half-day workweek without wage reductions among local governments was launched in Gyeonggi Province in June, which is located close to Seoul. It will continue until 2027.

By providing financial assistance to cover the increased labor costs, the program, which will run until 2027, encourages small and medium-sized businesses and public institutions in the province to experiment with shorter working hours.

Concerned about the proposed working week reduction, some experts and business leaders have voiced their concerns.

According to Kwon Young-sik, director of human resources at Yonsei University Health System, the parent organization of Severance, permanently switching to a four-day workweek would cost roughly 100 million won ($720) per ward in labor costs alone.

At a recent event where the labor union of Severance presented the results of the pilot program, Kwon claimed that “over the past three years, about 1.2 billion won have been spent on labor costs.”

For a four-day workweek to be sustainable, Severance’s general director Lee Kang-young stated at the same time that institutional and financial support would be “absolutely necessary.”

If a four-and-a-half-day workweek became the norm, Park Nam-gyoo, a professor of business at Seoul National University, said he would be concerned about productivity and wage disparities.

South Korea’s economy depends on exports. If it doesn’t manage to stay competitive globally, Park said. “It faces an uncertain future.”

He argued that the nation’s slow economy, low birthrate, and challenges to global competitiveness must all be taken into account.

However, Go and Lee’s employees want others to experience the advantages they have.

“There were no drawbacks at all,” he declared. I feel bad for my colleagues who couldn’t participate because it was a pilot program, which meant there were only a few people in my situation. Beyond that, Go added, “it ran smoothly without any operational issues.”

Source: Aljazeera