The Collapse of the Traditional Weekend, part one.
A brief history of the traditional work week.
Is The Traditional US Weekend Coming to an End?
It has become increasingly common practice for digital global knowledge workers to conduct some level of work over the Saturday & Sunday weekend. Most teams now consist of teammates that are distributed all over the world with different cultural understanding and definition of what a weekend is. This, combined with the technical ability to be connected virtually 24/7, has shifted our thinking and behaviors in the US, making it seem acceptable and almost expected behavior to conduct some level of work over the weekend. Whether it’s working late on Friday, reviewing emails all weekend or jumping on the computer Sunday night to “get ahead” of Mondays workload, the belief that knowledge workers are resting, relaxing, stepping away from work over the weekend is no longer the reality. As a result, we are seeing more burnout, stress, resentment and decreased employee engagement and morale, as workers try to keep pace with the non-stop flow of work.
Origin Of The (2) Day Weekend (Saturday & Sunday):
The (2) day weekend, Saturday & Sunday originated in Northern Britain and became popular in US in 1900s industrial era. Shockingly, not all countries follow the Saturday to Sunday weekend off work construct. Many countries may work a Thursday through Sunday or only (1) day weekend – it is largely driven by a country’s religious and cultural drivers. It is increasingly important that all countries workforces broaden their cultural understanding as they engage in global mix model teams. It is critical that teams avoid making culturally specific assumptions. Organizations and teams need to open conversations to establish effective communications strategies, agree on rules of engagement, as well as setting boundaries in the digital modern era for how they will work individually and how they will collaborate as a team on work.
Afterall the origin of the 40-hr. workweek, the (2) day weekend and the 9-5 day, were all part of the industrial revolution when workers were tied to a single location and physical outputs. There were set objectives on how many units of work were required to completed in a day, a week, etc. The definition of productivity was clear in the measure of units delivered in the manufacturing era. This all began to change, in 1990s with NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement 1994). NAFTA, originally focused on distributed manufacturing and finance in the Americas, laying the groundwork for the mind-set shift on the value of distributed working in the global modern world. This foundation helped to enable and accelerate distributed globalization of technology and digital knowledge workers. Although the new way of working path was in place, policies and cultural expectations did not keep up with the dramatic shift from central locations to distributed locations. People’s expectations were tied to the social structure of legacy models of structured working schedules.
“This environment of fear, at times, results in people not adhering to set work schedules and boundaries.”
Unlike physical manufacturing, digital services could be quickly shifted from one country to another as there were no tariffs and limited policies in place to protect digital as a “service product”. Whereas a manufactured product or parts had numerous restrictions and tariffs in place to protect the movement of the where the work was conducted. Thus started a shift in employer-employee expectations. Digital workers had access to work whenever they needed to conduct it, giving them flexibility and access 24/7. This was a double edge sword as the work could also be easily moved to another location and the fear of job loss became real for many knowledge workers. This environment of fear, at times, results in people not adhering to set work schedules and boundaries. Many feel the need to exceed the paid/standard work hours if requested by management or the team.
Stay tuned for part two, where we’ll dive into modern day solutions for redefining the work week.
About the Author:
Cat Collins has been a pioneer in business digital transformation for 30 years. Her focus is on organizational, service, functional and experience design, enabled by emerging digital technology. She has held executive positions in global companies and consulting firms. Her background in psychology/business and hands-on digital transformation experience, have guided her to an innovative human-centric approach to successfully develop solutions and products while helping people transition to new ways of working.