The concept of a 9–5, five-day work week should have died light years before the pandemic forced us to question it.
A dive into history but mostly an attempt to understand why a relic of the past persists.
The history
In 1926, Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, introduced the concept of a five-day, 40-hour workweek for his assembly line workers. The 9-to-5 was ideal to serve the needs of businesses needing people to work in factory style settings.
But let’s rewind way back in time…to Frederick Taylor.
Mr. Frederick Winslow Taylor was an American mechanical engineer known for his works on efficiency and one of the first management consultants. Taylor had targeted ideas about his system; to introduce the standardisation of methods and enforced adoption of working conditions. And the responsibility of enforcing the adoption of standards and also enforcing cooperation to assure speedier work lies with management alone. In this way, control would be transferred to management. Workers would be manual workers and the management will be in charge of the intellectual aspect and mental work. Job specifications and plans to how to execute the work would be drafted by management and communicated to workers.
Current Day
I believe the 9-to-5 dates far beyond Henry Ford and took its form in Taylorism. Except that his manager/worker relationship has evolved to include both white collar and blue collar as workers and the ‘manager’ in Taylor’s world are the executives or the invisible hands of capitalism.
The digital revolution and the millennial generation have shifted some of us into the gig economy, where some of us have become freelancers, solopreneurs, digital nomads. Masters of our destiny where we control where we spent our time and do not answer to a hierarchy.
But most of us are still stuck into the 9 to 5 scheme, we still believe in the concept of TGIF, relaxed weekends and having Sunday blues. No wonder Tim Ferris raked in the moolah with book ‘The four-hour Workweek’. No surprise how the four-day week is gaining momentum across the world. Deep down, we know something does not make sense, but we stay quiet for the sake of a monthly paycheck and in the name of financial security. Who wants to question the status quo? Who wants to defy the crowd and question how the world has been working for eons?
But then the lockdown happened, and we realised we were living in a quasi-fallacy; that physical offices are not needed, and lunch times could be play time with your kids, irrespective of afternoon deadlines. It is as if we are being enlightened; that we are actually modern slaves expected to produce on cue.
Before this black swan event (the black swan theory as coined by Nicholas Nassim Talab refers to unexpected events of large magnitude with a dominant impact on the course of history), working on your time was mostly for mavericks, artists and other creative types. Think about it, would you go ballistic if a musician or a painter told you he works 9 to 5? Like he took his palette and flick a switch on his creative side, and he started painting at 9 on the dot on a Monday morning. Why should the rest of us be any different?
But we were programmed since childhood. We were conditioned to operate in a manner that caused the least disruption and a seamless monitoring by superiors. Enter productivity and performance metrics. This system was successful and transcended decades simply because it worked for the people in power, whoever they were at any point in time. The ones who got out know it is perfectly normal to work hours that appeal to you but for the rest of us mere mortals, a carrot was flashed at the end of the stick: monetary incentives attached to productivity and performance. And suddenly we became money-minded robots who forced their own nature to achieve a level of material success that is leaving us empty inside.
Enter the flexitime, where companies provide the illusion of caring about their employees by allowing flexibility in the way the work is done. I do not think companies really care about their employees when they have serious bottom lines to meet. Some do. Bumble and its new employee policies come to mind. Undoubtedly, the flexitime gives you a breather in that you can take of personal errands or family matters. But the flexitime only provides a small respite to a rigid system. In fact, most flexitime I have seen people have worked longer hours to compensate (or as a sign of loyalty for having been given the flexibility).
I am obviously painting a very dark picture of the 9 to 5 mechanism. I am sure there are people who are absolutely thriving, having managed to find the right balance between flexibility and productivity. But there is also a great resignation happening and archaic methods are being questioned. I like it. To the future of work.
