It’s something we all have to do: after years of schooling and a series of interviews, we finally settle into a habit of going to work, Mondays to Fridays spent in an office.
The story of the five-day workweek is an interesting one, steeped in Babylonian and British history.
Early humans belonged to hunter-gatherer societies that relied on people filling in for different tasks in order to promote the survival of the larger community. Thus began the history of working for survival. This became especially important as society began to pivot to a form of currency. Barter and trade systems supported people who did specific tasks like blacksmiths, farmers, and hunters who would then trade the excesses of the fruits of their labour with other people. With the advent of currency, it soon became possible to exchange your labour for perceived value.
The concept of a ‘seven-day-week’ was started in Babylon, as the Babylonians believed that the number seven was so powerful that they planned their day around it. Their seven-day week spread to Egypt, Greece, and eventually to Rome, where it ultimately became firmly established as the norm across the world.
After the establishment of the seven-day workweek came the concept of the ‘weekend’, first recorded in 1879 in an English magazine called Notes and Queries:
“In Staffordshire, if a person leaves home at the end of his week’s work on the Saturday afternoon to spend the evening of Saturday and the following Sunday with friends at a distance, he is said to be spending his weekend at So-and-So.”
Soon, people began to spend the last day of their week — Sunday, for enjoyment and not rest, as previously established by religious text. 19th-century Britons would drink, gamble, and enjoy themselves so much that the term “Saint Monday” soon came into widespread use, as workers would skip work to recover from Sunday’s partying. To stop this, English factory owners later compromised with workers by giving them a half-day on Saturday in exchange for guaranteed attendance at work on Monday.
Eventually, Saturday was soon changed from a half-day to a full day’s rest, with a New England mill becoming the first American factory to institute the five-day week in 1908. They did so to accommodate Jewish workers, whose observance of a Saturday sabbath forced them to make up their work on Sundays. The mill granted these Jewish workers a two-day weekend, and other factories followed this example. The Great Depression cemented the two-day weekend into the economy, as shorter hours were considered a remedy to underemployment.
Developments: How Work is Evolving
Eventually, as technology and humanity developed in tandem, the nature of work slowly changed to accommodate newer demands and practices. In the 1940s, during World War 2, there was a sudden rise in the first appearance of remote work — teleworking, in which many industries hired thousands of women to work from home using just their telephones. The development and ubiquity of the telephone also enabled Jack Niles, father of remote work, to first realise that he could avoid the iconic 1970s ‘gridlock’ traffic, by just calling into important meetings.
With the development of the internet, it soon became increasingly apparent that there were jobs that could be easily carried out from the comfort of the employee's home. Roles like customer service and advertising were some of the first industries to see this change as industries worldwide soon started adopting different working styles, aided by technology.
IBM was one of the first companies to fully embrace the changes in style of work. They first started in 1979 by installing terminals in the homes of five employees in order to allow them to work from home and ease the logjam in the office mainframe.
By 1983, about 2,000 IBM employees were working remotely. They soon realised that it could save millions by selling its signature buildings and establishing distance work. In 2009, an IBM report boasted that “40 percent of IBM’s 386,000 employees in 173 countries have no office at all.”
Despite this and technology quickly accelerating, worldwide adoption of remote work was still slow due to industries worrying about how it would impact employee productivity. However, the COVID-19 pandemic forced several industries across the world to consider ways in which they could adopt remote working styles in order to still be able to function. Even after people could return to work, remote work still stuck around in many companies either in full or as a method to supplement the normal working week (through a hybrid set-up).
This is a change that has been generally accepted by employees. A survey by Slack of 9,000 workers in six countries found that 72% prefer a hybrid remote-office model with only 12% preferring to always work in an office setting. In fact, this change was especially well accepted by global tech giants and start-ups. According to a study by DigitalOcean, a cloud-based platform, 86% of developers work remotely, with almost one-third working from home full-time. Employees also mention several benefits to remote work. A study conducted by Owl Labs revealed the following:
- Remote employees save an average of 40 minutes daily from commuting.
- 59% of respondents said they would be more likely to choose an employer who offered remote work compared to those who didn’t.
The development of technology has also greatly supported the evolution of work. Platforms like Slack, Zoom, and Google Suite, developed in the 2010’s have greatly contributed to making remote and hybrid work easier to coordinate.
Benefits of A Remote/Hybrid Work Style
Remote work, either conducted fully or in a hybrid set-up, has several benefits for both employers and employees.
For Employees:
- Freedom to Work From Anywhere: The most evident benefit of working remotely is that you can complete your work from virtually anywhere. You can work from your home office, from a cafe or even while you travel. As long as you have a functional computer, good WiFi and the ability to complete tasks on time, you can work from wherever you are.
- Flexible Work Schedule: Depending on your company’s specific policies about daily work hours, you can often work with a flexible schedule. These flexible hours often lead to higher rates of employee productivity, since employees can work at a time that’s best for them.
- Save Time and Money: Working remotely means employees can save money and time on commutes and office lunches.
- Avoid Burnout and Set Work Boundaries: Working from home can reduce your stress levels for a variety of reasons. For example, you no longer have to stress about running late or rushing to get to work on time. Instead, you can take a break during your work day to walk around the block or get a meal to refuel you for the rest of the day. This flexibility can help you prioritise your well-being so you can continue to work effectively and enjoy a balance between work and life.
For Employers:
- Increased Productivity: Despite many employers’ concerns, remote workers are actually productive as they can set up a place at home where they are comfortable and can avoid distractions. Some professions, in particular in the tech industry, require employees to work in ‘blocks’; they may need to focus for many hours at a time. Having space where nobody will interrupt is very important for this-this is why remote work is so popular in these industries.
- Saving on Equipment and Office Spaces: While not true for all situations, freelancers typically purchase their own computers and other devices and claim it under their own business expenses — so this is one less thing that the employer has to worry about! Additionally, employers can save on having to build a large dedicated office space, and instead find more affordable ways to conduct business.
- Global Talent Pools: Hiring remotely allows employers to choose ‘the best of the best’. Some businesses are able to hire people from anywhere in the world, whilst others require someone to be in a particular location or time zone. But either way, there will almost certainly be a larger selection of people than if the role was advertised as an in-office position.
- Lower Cases of Absenteeism: Absenteeism in the workplace is a big problem for workers and employees alike. Illnesses and appointments are often unavoidable (although remote working helps with them, too!), but absenteeism due to commuting time can be curbed by hiring a remote team.
Predictions for The Future of Work
In a post COVID-19 world, it goes without saying that remote work is definitely here to stay. According to McKinsey, the pandemic accelerated existing trends in remote work, e-commerce, and automation, with up to 25% more workers than previously estimated potentially needing to switch occupations. Working might continue to take new forms with remote work becoming a mainstay, while several roles (especially manual and repetitive roles that need to be done in person) will be replaced with AI and automation, leaving only highly-skilled roles open to remote workers and contractors across the world, encouraging the gig economy.
TL;DR
Work, as we know it, has been an evolving and shifting concept since jobs first became a mainstay of the human experience. Technology has further pushed this evolution, such that we can only study the past to predict what the future holds.
References
How work is evolving: The Atlantic,
5-day work week: The Atlantic
Benefits of remote and hybrid work: Indeed.com, Avocor.com
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