Job Alternatives?

This morning on Good Morning America, they talked about two different things that employers are considering doing. These things were in seperate segments entirely, and I believe were done for different reasons as well, but I saw a lot of promise in them for the same reason. The segments were talking about the possibility of a four-day work week and working at home. What these two have in common? The possibility of lowering the amount of gas consumed.

It seems obvious to me that neither of these will work for all jobs. My new job is at a help desk. As such, we’d need to be available 5 days a week. We also wouldn’t likely be able to get away with doing it at home either. Maybe they could contract some people who know a lot to take calls at home, but ultimately the problem becomes coordinating those calls as well as figuring out problem calls that you’ve never dealt with before. However, there are a lot of jobs which could do either of these solutions, and to those would it be a bad thing to go this route?

For the 4-day work week, the report cautioned that the economy might take a downward spin on a larger scale. Saying that a lot of other businesses count on a 5-day work week. For instance, some businesses count on the copy business, people go and buy coffee, donuts, bagels, and newspapers and such things. But to this I call bull. These businesses for the most part operate on the weekends too. The one exception to this is that of the delivery services which I do believe are fully dependent upon businesses. However, even these businesses could curb themselves to a 4-day system. Heck the US Postal Service for a long time has already been talking about taking one or two days off their delivery service, and this type of thing would certainly push them over the edge, which wouldn’t necessarily be bad as the USPS is largely outdated and money draining anyway.

They could also alleviate the hurt this might put on businesses as well by not all taking the same day off in the first place. Businesses invariably do different things on different days anyway. What might work easily for one would likely be a pain for another, and so letting them figure out what day is the easiest to cut might very well be the easiest solution all the way around. So instead of having say Monday off, some would have Tuesdays and some Fridays. The businesses who need 5 days would still be doing 5 days but perhaps not as much operations in each particular day, which for some may actually be a boon.

This has already started at some schools, and parents are already worried about retaining as one of the first ones to test this option have chosen to have kids not come in on Mondays offering a 3-day weekend. I think the better way to handle this issue is to have the new off day on Wednesdays, thus making the break less severe on a child’s memory. (Although I think the real problem with parents is that they now have to pay childcare which is a real issue however they may not say that outright.)

For the work at home bit. The benefits and negatives are obvious. The negatives are few and really stem from people not seeing each other and working with each other and thus not knowing the business as well. However, the positive besides gas savings is that it offers the employee much more freedom and thus happiness. As long as the work gets done, this costs the business nothing in the end, except that they now have to house one less employee in their offices and thus can have a bigger business without having as large of a building which actually will save money.

Overall, I think the combination of the two ideas would be great for gas consumption issues and would help commuters greatly reduce the amount of gas that they need to pay for. As noted,  I also think these solutions have an alternate advantage of happier and more efficient workers which is all good.