5 Working Days a Week - A Threat To Social And National Productivity And Competence

5 days week is implemented in almost all private sectors and a few government sectors in India. Government is considering to extend 5 days week to all sectors and all schools.

Let's understand the implications of this prima facie innocuous and lucrative provision.

Let's take an example of IT industry in India where we have 5 days week. Since most of the work that propelled this industry is from America and Europe, we have (not so thoughtfully)adapted to some aspects of their work culture. We did not feel the need to understand why 5 days week works good for developed countries (with controlled population) and why it could be counter effective in a developing country like India.

Here is how the leave structure looks in a IT firm and some other private sectors:

    52 Sundays

+

    52 Saturdays

+

    10 Government holidays (varies from 8 to 10)

+

    20 Earned leaves (these can be more)

+

    20 Medical leaves (if required)

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Total 154   (Paid leaves)
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So that leaves us with 210 days a year. In addition to this, one needs to take off for some programs, family functions or excursions which sums up to at least 2 weeks, i.e. 10 days. So one may effectively end up working maximum for 200 days in an year. You will be surprised to know that people still keep cribbing about insufficient leaves. And they still hardly find time to get their personal tasks done and spend quality time with family. No one pays much attention to the disparities we have in working structures and environment in India. If serious studies are done and presented to society, this could be outrageously shocking for many people who had to work in range of 250-300 days an year.   

Given the choice, all people will welcome the decision of 5 days week. And it is quite obvious choice as an individual. By nature, maximum people will choose short term gains over long term benefits. However we need to be careful what are we getting into here.  At least for government, it should be a subject matter of deep study. We have work force as strong as 20+ crore people combining all sectors. With 5 days a week policy, we are taking out 52 working days from each employee i.e. 1040 crore working days i.e. whooping 8320 crore working hours. You can imagine the loss we will induce on our country. When an organization like doctors, transporters or teachers go on strike for some demands, we keep hearing the big loss figures in news channels.  

With this policy, to stretch analogy a bit, it is like strikes will now be paid affairs.

There is an argument given in support of this, that we are going to keep the work hours the same by extending couple of hours daily. However we all know how lame and infeasible is that argument. Indian government does not have any credible performance assessment infrastructure in place. We have experienced pains of bureaucracy  in almost all government offices.  Take a standard 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. working hours. Inadvertently, the day of an employee start at least half an hour late. Lunch break is extended by at least half an hour. And wind up starts at least half an hour before prescribed timing. So from an expected 8 hours of work, we are already leaking approx. 2 hours a day per employee.   For 5 days week, we are saying people will work for one or two extra hours daily. Theoretically and mathematically that sounds all good. However the ground reality is going to be different. It will essentially result into more leak in daily work hours. So if currently you are getting 6 out of 8 hours of work done, this can at maximum become 7 out of 10. And no rocket science is required to guess that this is going to have significant impact on national progress and development.

Apart from economic loss, there are few other social implications of this. In our constitution, we talk about equal opportunities and rights. However the benefit of this work policy change is only limited to these 20 crore people. Other 40 crore people are still going to go to work on all days and work hard as usual. This brings in social disparity and the feeling of negligence. Good that not many people give this a serious thought. Unless and until you think about how comprehensive is the policy benefit, you cannot claim to be doing justice to whole country.

Coming to implementation of this policy at schools, kids are more energetic and they need to be kept engaged in activities so that their energy find ways out. Schools are the guided creative environments where this purpose is achieved. The energy is utilized in many different ways. Right from classroom education to sports to co-curricular activities to social activities. Honestly, do you think the kids at home for 1 additional day is more constructive than they being in school for those 8 odd hours. Just think of what will they be doing in those 8 hours that you have robbed them of good constructive environment of spending their energies. 

They will be playing video games, watch television for long hours,  surf on internet or attend some forces activity classes. Parents here will be better off letting them do that since they don't want to be bothered. Let apart few exceptions, what percentage of parents, being benefited from this 5 days week policy, do you think will utilize that one extra day at home as a quality time with kids. Everyone of us may pretend saying that I definitely will, don't know of others.  However, we all know the answer in heart.

End result is that. the kids coming out of school are already used to be doing nothing much useful for 2 days. They have lost their capacities to be energetic for 6 days a week and use Sunday to recharge themselves. Now they will be used to 2 days of relaxed time at home. Finishing the education, when they get a job in hand and start earning money and become independent, they will explore more and more avenues to enjoy life, which means they need more and more energy. But since they are programmed with 2 days of lethargy, they don't have the extra energy needed. 

Many private school students are already becoming couch potatoes over weekends.  So what is the solution for their problem? A shorter week, maybe a 4 days week at job, will be what they will start craving for and its not their fault at all. As I mentioned in the beginning, I have seen people in industry cribbing that they are overworked and do not find sufficient time to relax and enjoy. In America and Europe, people have started opting to work only for 4 days taking either Friday or Monday off. Bollywood songs changed from "संडे मनायेंगे फ्रायडे नाईटसे" (we start weekend celebration right from Friday night) to "हफ्ते में चार शनिवार होने चाहिए"(a week should have four Saturdays).

Isn't that an interesting situation? We came back to square, from 6 days week to 5 days week without achieving any significant(long term) benefit to anyone. It is a lose-lose situation. It is indeed worrisome and something to seriously ponder on. I know we can sit back and watch this happening, but if we are convinced about the ill effects, we should start talking about it and simply keep talking. As teachers as parents, you should not think about getting an extra day at home but you should think of about what is in best interest of your students and kids. As an employee of an organization, you should know that one extra day off at work means robbing the people of the services for one more day. And who is getting robbed by the way? It is you and no one else.

Choice is ours!     

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