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Day in day out, we all struggle with work/life balance. Too many of us live to work rather than work to live.

One way we can help to rebalance our lives is to shift from a standard five-day working week to four days.

And the good news is, the approach works, for workers and businesses too.

The time is right for Government to take the case for a four-day week seriously.

The world of work is changing rapidly. The way we work – using all kinds of technology that we could have only dreamed of twenty years ago – means we are always on and hardly ever truly off.

The average working week in Ireland is around 39 hours. But laws limiting working hours are routinely breached.

(Image: Collins Photo Agency)

Flurries of late-night emails and demands from the office at all times of the day and night mean there is now no real boundary between work and home life.

Some might say it’s “the new normal”, but it doesn’t have to stay that way.

In France, new laws are in place to allow for the right to disconnect. So workers in Paris and Marseille can now have clauses in their contracts meaning they get to switch off when they clock off.

New technology is supposed to be designed to help us to work smarter and more efficiently.

The dream was that new innovations would mean we would spend less time at the desk, in the factory or on the road.

In truth the opposite is often the case. So it’s time to change tack.

Let’s make sure the tech works for us rather than us becoming enslaved by the tech.

In the early part of the 20th century, prophets of doom said entire industries would collapse if the demands of unions and Labour parties for a five-day week were conceded.

We will hear the same said about the concept of the four-day week. Where it has been done and studied, it has proven to be a success.

One company in New Zealand piloted the initiative in 2018. In that firm, staff went from a 40-hour week to 32 hours, and on the same take home pay.

They reported that they became more productive, they got more done, they were less stressed and were more creative over four days than the traditional five.

Other firms who shifted to a four-day week (including one in my one county of Louth) have also said that staff are happier, sick days are down and fewer pointless meetings take place as more work gets packed efficiently into four days than was the case with five. Teamwork also thrives.

Managers also tell me it’s easier to retain good staff who love their four-day week. Few if any staff want to leave for fear of having to go back to a five-day week in a different company.

With a three-day weekend, many four-day week workers I have spoken to tell me they do the housework, their shopping and the odd-jobs on Friday, leaving the whole weekend to enjoy family life and the things that make life worth living – more time with the kids, meeting friends for a pint, going to the match or the cinema.

Just think too about how a four-day week can bring savings on crippling childcare costs and help reduce carbon emissions by cutting the commute.

And for every day the office is closed, there’s money to be saved for businesses in terms of operating and energy costs. This is an idea that can work. However, we should not be blind to the challenges.

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While it might be easy to implement in the factory and in the office I’m conscious that the same might not be said for sectors such as education and healthcare.

As part of Labour’s Future of Work plans, we support the four-day week concept and we endorse Forsa trade union’s national campaign which kicks off today.

I believe the time is right for national conversation on how a four-day week can work for everyone.