HE said — SHE said

“A shortened workweek would take a certain percentage of commuters and drivers off the highways. That is it, although there is no guarantee that a certain portion of this number would really stay at home. And work.

It has become a play of catch up, that of living in Metro Manila and the suburbs which keep expanding until it is now about to explode.

Land development has taken an unimaginable pace that infrastructure, mostly built post-war until the 1990s, could no longer keep up with the speed of opportunities presented to the people.

Metro Manila is a melting pot of the regions, but it is there where the air is cleaner and food still abundant. Not here.

But there is no money there, the opportunities are in the big cities. And so, they came in droves.

The number is so overwhelming that no pure Manileño could beat the number of our comprovinciano who have made the metro their own home.

But we pay for everything we have used and consumed.

The daily traffic gridlock is a result of this. More people work in the metropolis, earning good money that empowers their purchasing strength.

The luckier ones have had their children improve their lives by gainful education, which at most times had given them opportunities to work in bigger, better paying companies that further improve their purchasing power.

We have reported in the past how car sales have kept soaring through the years. The more cars in the cities and suburbs, the greater traffic its people deal with.

There is no longer a day or night. The BPO industry has assured that.

We call it progress, for lack of a better term.

But we choke. We trip. We spend a third of our lives travelling to our places of work from our homes. Those who can afford it buy condominium units near their workplaces.

Talks about introducing a four-day workweek have gained grounds in the past months, however. It could be the smallest solution to the traffic mess. It should be, as it is the only way our lawmakers and official now see.

A shortened workweek would take a certain percentage of commuters and drivers off the highways. That is it, although there is no guarantee that a certain portion of this number would really stay at home. And work.

Local employers have balked at this proposal, although work-from-home arrangements have long been introduced in some more prosperous parts of the world.

In the US and in Canada, most IT workers enjoy such arrangements. They only make themselves available on call. But the rest of their projects are completed at home.

These countries want less carbon footprints for their people. We only want to make our people gain little spaces to move.

It is worth trying, however. We can take any solution they can offer to make us breathe.

But the extra quality time for the family won’t hurt, too.

There are days when my brain feels like mush and every surface looks temptingly like I could lay my head there and just close my eyes.

Most times, it feels like I spend more time in transit than I should be sleeping or working, and it is because going through traffic in Metro Manila renders you practically catatonic nowadays.

Even if you are raring to get that power nap or catch up on some writing, you can’t because you’re bouncing on potholes caused by ill-maintained roads or getting nauseous from Waze’s tricky turns.

My eye bags are now luggage and my temper has noticeably soured.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my job, and I thrive in working in an office that fairly buzzes with activity and team spirit. Yet the travails of traveling within the metro can really get me down.

The work I do is constant. I work practically every minute because my mind creates the content that eventually turns into output. The time I put in working cannot really be quantified because I do it wherever I am and whenever possible. And so while a four-day workweek sounds like bliss, it doesn’t really apply to one like me, who works in media.

However, to talk about less days at work and more days to move about sounds like a good plan. If we could consider a more flexible schedule where employees get to put in the same number of hours in a week yet less days out, then maybe there will be more smiling Filipino workers than there seems to be nowadays.

On the road home sometimes, and usually this would be past dinner time, I pass by many urban warriors still trying to catch a ride home. Their faces tell a whole story and I can’t help but imagine how it must be to have to go through the same rigmarole five or even six days a week.

They say the traffic is caused by just too many vehicles on the road. Simply put, having too many people on the road to or from work or school has congested the streets and made all of us suffer through time mismanagement and broken appointments.

Yet, will a four-day workweek help ease traffic in Metro Manila this Christmas season?

Perhaps…and it can also do more than that.

It can make workers happy, boost their productivity, increase mental focus and overall make families happier than they may have been because they can spend more time together this season. Especially this season.

Companies abroad have experimented on the shortened workweek schedule and found it to be beneficial overall.

Microsoft Japan, after giving its employees four days of and three days off, reported a 40-percent increase in worker productivity.

Meanwhile, a company in New Zealand also tried a four-day workweek and found it to be “so successful” that they want to continue with it.

Its chief executive said “he had made a recommendation to the board to continue the policy after an analysis revealed a ‘massive increase’ in staff satisfaction with no drop in productivity,” a July 2019 report in The Independent UK said.

Germany is reported to have the shortest working hours among European countries, yet it “manages to achieve among the highest productivity levels,” the same article points out.

Here’s another thought: “While Germans work the fewest number of hours per year, they are closely followed by Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. Mexicans, Koreans and Costa Ricans work the most.” Denmark, if you recall, is home to the happiest people on earth.

Moreover, “evidence has also shown that overwork leads to more time being taken off. In 2016, 12.5 million work days were lost due to work-related stress, anxiety or depression. In 44 percent of cases the cause was workload.”

This is food for thought in an age where everything moves so fast and people are dying to catch up. It is worth considering by our President, who at one time or another, has spoken up about feeling fatigued. There are benefits to be gained from having a work-life balance and it’s been proven by many companies including the most successful ones like Amazon and Google.

Technology now allows us to work offsite and it should be a consideration when adjusting work schedules in companies where output is uppermost.

I suppose a lot of employers are scared that giving less days to their employees will mean a slack in productivity or output. But with the changes in our world today, perhaps it is time to look more seriously into other solutions.