Working hours of employees has always been a contentious debate, some proposing reduced working days with extended weekends. While this practice can definitely have positive impact on employee wellbeing and productivity at work, in certain fields this change can be impractical.
Many workplace problems, such as fatigue and stress are often associated with long hours and more working days. This leaves insufficient time for personal matters and relaxation making recovery for the next week difficult. From ethical perspective, giving employees more weekends is beneficial to maintain their mental health. Not only does this help them with workplace pressure, but also can be a powerful method for a country aiming to create a happy population.
Moreover, longer weekends do not necessarily mean deteriorated efficiency. The initiatives of countries, such as Finland, indicate the opposite scenario: giving more days off may actually increase productivity at work since well-rested staff can perform better than those faced with fatigue. This can also imrpove responsibility of employees because they try to compensate back extended weekends the company has provided.
This practice, however, cannot be applied universally. That is to say, areas, such as medicine and police force demand their workers to be present everyday, and understandably so. There is a need for such services always, as it is insensible to close a police station or a hospital at weekends. Instead of giving them longer weekends, these workplaces should introduce longer holidays, or higher compensations.
In conclusion, the idea of extended weekends is certainly a positive consideration for many domains due to increased productivity and better employee wellbeing. However, this shift in working patterns cannot be applicable in some areas, including police forces and medicine, as their services are always in demand.