Concept of four day work weeks makes its way into corporate culture

Agencies
July 3, 2019

Washington D.C. Jul 3: Working four day a week seems too good to be true, right? Well, here is some salt for your wounds - there are companies out there offering four-day work weeks to entice workers seeking a better work-life balance.

In the corporate world, where getting weekends off feels like a luxury, there are employees who only have to work four days a week and get the other three days to themselves.

When provided with flexible schedules employers "see an increase in productivity," Bill Castellano, a professor at Rutgers' School of Management and Labor Relations, told CNN.

"It does have a positive impact on engagement. People who have flexibility feel reciprocity. They want to give back to the company," Castellano explained.

According to CNN's report, different companies use different techniques when it comes to delivering on the promise of the four-day workweek concept. Some employers have employees working for 10 hours per day, while others shorten the number of hours worked each week.

Some companies design the schedule in such a way that the employee ends up doing eight nine-hour of shift for three days and one eight-hour day and gets every other Friday off.

Shake Shack, an American casual restaurant chain based in New York City, recently announced its plans of testing out the concept of a four-day workweek at some of its outlets.

"The days of the restaurant business have been -- you work really hard, you're never home, you work six, seven days a week and 12 to 14 hour days. Lately, we started challenging that notion," Shake Shack CEO Randy Garutti told CNN.

Already following the four-day-work idea, employees at software company Wildbit have been working for 32 hours per week, i.e. four-day work week for more than two years now. The practice which started out as an experiment shortly proved to be beneficial for both, employees and work outcome.

"We continued to extend it each quarter and a year later when we reflected, we realized we had gotten more done that year than we had in a long time," said Natalie Nagele, Wildbit's CEO and co-founder.

According to Nagele, getting an extra day off, in addition to the weekends, provides the employees time to regenerate and come back to work all re-energized to give their 100 per cent.

"By Monday morning, everyone is kind of running to work. You can process challenges and think through things you were blocked by and then by Monday you feel more empowered to get work done," she asserted.

Castellano suggests that the trick of making a four-day work-week sustainable is setting measurable goals for the employees.

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News Network
February 12,2020

Washington, Feb 12: People who are optimistic may contribute to the health of their partners, staving off the risk factors leading to Alzheimer's disease, dementia and cognitive decline as they grow old together, according to a study.

The research, published in the Journal of Personality, followed nearly 4,500 heterosexual couples from the US Health and Retirement Study for up to eight years.

The researchers found a potential link between being married to an optimistic person and preventing the onset of cognitive decline, due to a healthier environment at home.

"We spend a lot of time with our partners.They might encourage us to exercise, eat healthier or remind us to take our medicine," said William Chopik, an assistant professor at the Michigan State University in the US.

"When your partner is optimistic and healthy, it can translate to similar outcomes in your own life. You actually do experience a rosier future by living longer and staving off cognitive illnesses," Chopik said.

An optimistic partner may encourage eating healthy foods, or working out together to develop healthier lifestyles, the researchers said.

For example, if a person quits smoking or starts exercising, their partner is close to following suit, they said.

"We found that when you look at the risk factors for what predicts things like Alzheimer's disease or dementia, a lot of them are things like living a healthy lifestyle," Chopik said.

"Maintaining a healthy weight and physical activity are large predictors.There are some physiological markers as well. It looks like people who are married to optimists tend to score better on all of those metrics," he said.

The researchers said there is a sense where optimists lead by example, and their partners follow their lead.

They also suggest that when couples recall shared experiences together, richer details from the memories emerge.

Chopik noted while there is a heritable component to optimism, there is some evidence to suggest that it's a trainable quality.

"There are studies that show people have the power to change their personalities, as long as they engage in things that make them change," Chopik said.

"Part of it is wanting to change. There are also intervention programs that suggest you can build up optimism," he added.

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News Network
February 4,2020

Toronto, Feb 4: People who text while walking face a higher risk of an accident than those listening to music or talking on the phone, a study has found.

The study, published in the journal Injury Prevention, found that smartphone texting is linked to compromised pedestrian safety, with higher rates of 'near misses', and failure to look left and right before crossing a road.

Researchers from the University of Calgary in Canada call for a more thorough approach to exploring the impact of distracted pedestrian behaviours on crash risk.

Worldwide, around 270,000 pedestrians die every year, accounting for around a fifth of all road traffic deaths, according to the researchers.

'Pedestrian distraction' has become a recognised safety issue as more and more people use their smartphones or hand held devices while walking on the pavement and crossing roads, they said.

The researchers looked for published evidence to gauge the potential impact on road safety of hand-held or hands-free device activities.

This included talking on the phone, text messaging, browsing and listening to music.

From among 33 relevant studies, they pooled the data from 14 -- involving 872 people -- and systematically reviewed the data from another eight.

The analysis showed that listening to music wasn't associated with any heightened risk of potentially harmful pedestrian behaviours.

Talking on the phone was associated with a small increase in the time taken to start crossing the road, and slightly more missed opportunities to cross the road safely.

The researchers found that text messaging emerged as the potentially most harmful behaviour.

It was associated with significantly lower rates of looking left and right before or while crossing the road, and with moderately increased rates of collisions, and close calls with other pedestrians or vehicles, they said.

Texting also affected the time taken to cross a road, and missed opportunities to cross safely, but to a lesser extent, according to the researchers.

The review of the eight observational studies revealed that the percentage of pedestrians who were distracted ranged from 12 to 45 per cent, they said.

It also found behaviours were influenced by several factors, including gender, time of day, solo or group crossing, and walking speed.

The researchers acknowledge "a variety of study quality issues" which limit the generalisability of the findings.

"Given the ubiquity of smartphones, social media, apps, digital video and streaming music, which has infiltrated most aspects of daily life, distracted walking and street cross will be a road safety issue for the foreseeable future," the researchers noted.

"And as signage and public awareness campaigns don't seem to alter pedestrian behaviour, establishing the relationship between distracted walking behaviour and crash risk is an essential research need," they said.

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Agencies
July 30,2020

New York, Jul 30: Can the coronavirus spread through the air? Yes, it's possible.

The World Health Organisation recently acknowledged the possibility that Covid-19 might be spread in the air under certain conditions.

Recent Covid-19 outbreaks in crowded indoor settings — restaurants, nightclubs and choir practices — suggest the virus can hang around in the air long enough to potentially infect others if social distancing measures are not strictly enforced.

Experts say the lack of ventilation in these situations is thought to have contributed to spread, and might have allowed the virus to linger in the air longer than normal.

In a report published in May, researchers found that talking produced respiratory droplets that could remain in the air in a closed environment for about eight to 14 minutes.

The WHO says those most at risk from airborne spread are doctors and nurses who perform specialized procedures such as inserting a breathing tube or putting patients on a ventilator.

Medical authorities recommend the use of protective masks and other equipment when doing such procedures.

Scientists maintain it's far less risky to be outside than indoors because virus droplets disperse in the fresh air, reducing the chances of Covid-19 transmission.

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