MLA calls on GN to adopt 4-day workweek
Adam Arreak Lightstone says move would address staffing shortages, boost productivity
Adam Arreak Lightstone tells the legislature on Wednesday that the Government of Nunavut should adopt a four-day workweek. (Photo by Jeff Pelletier)
It’s time for the Government of Nunavut to switch to a four-day work week, according to Iqaluit-Manirajak MLA Adam Arreak Lightstone.
At the opening of the spring legislative session Wednesday, Lightstone delivered a nearly 10-minute speech calling on the GN to modernize its working model, and panning the current system as outdated.
The speech exceeded the allotted time for members’ statements, but his colleagues gave unanimous consent to continue.
“I believe that moving towards a four-day workweek and adapting remote and hybrid models of work will show that we are serious [about] being an employer of choice and will attract more professionals to Nunavut and increase the retention rate amongst our public servants,” Lightstone said.
“An extra day off would give employees more time to spend with their families and participate in community activities, and most importantly strengthen the cultural connections and create [a] greater sense of community.”
The GN has been facing a staffing shortage for some time.
According to Lightstone, there are nearly 2,000 jobs to be filled, translating into a 40 per cent vacancy rate.
Lightstone said research is proving the four-day workweek model is not only wanted, but is working.
“Once considered little more than a thought experiment, business leaders are now viewing reduced work hours as inevitability in the coming years and the trend will only intensify as the employment rates remain historically low and companies compete for skilled workers,” he said.
“Where it has been implemented, the four-day workweek has been shown to benefit employers, employees, clients, and most importantly society as a whole.”
Lightstone’s claim didn’t come out of nowhere.
According to a study by the job recruitment company Talent.com and pollster YouGov, 93 per cent of Canadians are interested in switching to a four–day workweek.
In that same study, however, respondents shared some of their concerns about the model, such as the possibility of less pay, longer work days, increased stress, and the notion that it wouldn’t be compatible with their line of work.
According to the research non-profit 4 Day Week Global, studies from the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand have shown positive results such as high productivity and support for a shorter workweek, with decreases in burnout and resignations.
Lightstone brought the four-day workweek issue to question period as well on Wednesday.
Human Resources Minister Margaret Nakashuk responded to three of Lightstone’s questions on the matter, saying the GN currently does not have a plan to switch to a four-day workweek but it’s not in the realm of impossibility.
“We have not included it in our planning exercises, but we can include it in the discussion stages and to determine which would be the most convenient way,” she said.
“We are always open to hearing of resolutions geared towards improving our workplaces, and particularly, in placing more Inuit into the public services as we continue to look to recruit more Inuit, and we want to hear about potential improvements and we can look into that down the road.”
Nunavut can’t do anything in 5 days ? 4 days make ‘‘em even do more of nothing ??
seriously?
most of the GN barely works a 3 day work week given the 45 minute coffee breaks and hour and a half lunches you know they will take (thanks Jerry Cans)
I mean, come one. you see most of them stroll into the office by 9am if you are lucky. 12 cigarette breaks a day and long lunches. don’t forget some of the people who’s supervisors don’t even work in the Community and if they run a side business like a taxi, it’s a free for all and make your own hours because hey you work for the GN you get a full pay no matter what. who needs to help with those pesky land leases.
Same work ethic here !!
I think it’s worth looking into.
5 day work week 8 hours a day would be perfectly fine in a society where you can still afford to support a family on a single income and have a stay at home parent/spouse to take care of the home.
But nowadays where you can barely survive on two incomes, you end up spending the little time you have after work and on weekends just taking care of the house.
A 4 day work week or a shorter work day would help with that.
Also I see most comments here complain about how little work gets done or how little workers actually work. So if that’s the case then what’s the difference?
If you get 3 days worth of productivity in then it’s no different if you’re sitting at the office for 4 or 5 days.
This is a good idea. Most GN workers can’t even commit to a 2-day workweek so asking workers to work for 5 is too much. This is a good idea as long as it’s not 10 hour days. 8 hour days 4 days a week and same salary, yes?
LOL. Thanks “Lol”
Why not go for a 20 hr work week and get paid for 40 hrs !!!
So the answer to a staffing shortage is to get the existing workforce to work LESS? Never mind those full-timers who currently show up if and when it suits them. This article reads as satire … but it’s not! It’s Nunavut.
Let me guess, the 4-day work week will still be at 5-day pay! Yeah, I guess that will make it easier to fill the jobs. Getting the work done though? Ah, I guess we’re past all that colonialism.
Such a disingenuous interpretation of what’s being said can only be intentional. And to use the name ‘Reality’ is to really gaslight yourself.
Let me help you. You suggest “the answer to a staffing shortage is to get the existing workforce to work LESS”.
There’s a half-truth here, dependent on what you mean by work. If time in your chair, office or building is ‘work’ that would be true. But we all know ‘work’ means something else. It’s the ‘stuff’ you do that counts as your job, whatever that might be; data entry, serving the public or problem solving for fellow staff. How much of that stuff you effectively accomplish in a given day or week is your efficiency.
The argument, being experimented on around the world, is that efficiency (E) can either be increased or held at the same level in less time (T). In turn this increases quality of life (Q), decreases burnout, and leads to greater well-being for workers.
To put it differently, there is an inverse correlation that suggests less T = increased (or equivalent) E and higher Q.
Sounds good, but can we prove it? There are multiple studies, based on real world trials, that suggest this is true. Have a look:
https://canadianbusiness.com/ideas/four-day-work-week-canada/
Also a good piece:
https://www.narcity.com/4-day-workweek-is-being-tested-all-over-canada-heres-how-its-going
News Flash Adam, find me a GN employee who actually goes to work more then 4 days in a row?
How does that song go again?
With my 45-minutes coffee breaks
And my hour-and-a-half lunches, you know I’m always late
I say one day (one day)
Gonna work for the GN!
I did, before we left.
But the fact that I was part of a tiny minority of competent and ambitious workers was a major contributing factor to our decision to leave. I got tired of doing three people’s jobs.
Literally everyone in my office.
Managers are supposed to set examples, but often they are the ones that are doing the Jerry Cans’ iteration of a GN workday.
How can managers enforce proper work ethic if they can’t even follow the GN policies?
This is a big problem at the GN and will likely never get fixed unless our leaders take some serious action.
The Emperors are indeed, quite nude…
Senior Managers in the GN (and most government’s) don’t get paid overtime. What’s unique about Nunavut is just how much of the work gets done at the top (Senior Managers in other governments are managing staff that in Nunavut just doesn’t exist). So what often happens is leadership works unpaid evenings and weekends to meet critical deadlines, they then are understandably less adherent to the 8:30-5:00 work day.
Staff who are only in the offices 8:30-5:00 only see leadership’s long lunch breaks, they don’t see the unpaid evenings and weekends. Understandably they take this to mean limited performance is acceptable. To complicate things further, many high preforming staff have Flex Time Agreements allowing them to work at different times between 7:00am and 7:00pm, again other staff only see them leaving early or coming in late.
There is a significant core holding up are public service, they are just not very visible. We should strive to retain them, including offering a 4-day work week.
Great idea. We spend so much of our time at work and comparatively little with our families. If it can be shown that less time in the office equals more productivity then this should, at the very least, be experimented with.
100% agreed. If there is compelling evidence that this works, we should try it. Amazing that people would down vote such a plainly obvious statement.
But what does that tell us?
It shows how ingrained our customs around the “work week” are. For most people this is question about culture, not evidence.
Remember, the 5 day work week was an invention meant to improve the lives of people who until that moment had worked 7 days a week. That was 100 years ago. We continue to treat it as sacrosanct because it is traditional, but not all traditions are optimal or even best practice.
To the point, if evidence suggests people are happier and just as, or more, efficient in their work, then why shouldn’t we take this idea seriously?
if you disagree with me, I’d like to hear your counter points (railing against GN workers is not an argument, by the way).
Then why does the comment directly below this one have a 95% like ratio when it suggests that this practice should be followed by a timeclock to track the TRUE hours of employees?
I’m going to guess this has less to do with “work culture” and more to do with “work culture” if you catch my drift.
The core issue is whether this idea will optimize two things; efficiency at work, and quality of life for workers. If the data shows this can be done by reducing the number of days or time at work, why would anyone object?
You say this has “less to do with “work culture” and more to do with “work culture” if you catch my drift.”
I sincerely don’t catch your drift. Would you mind trying again for us slow pokes?
As for tracking and monitoring time spent at work, sure… I have no objections and don’t see any inconsistency here.
As for the ‘ratio,’ (surely this is not your idea of good data?) I think there’s truth to the observation that GN employees, like any unionized employee, can abuse leave, take liberties with breaks, etc… I agree and see it everyday. Still, that’s not the same issue (see the comment by ‘Holy’ below).
Granted, I can see why people would resist an idea that appears to reward those who should probably get the screws. That seems to be a good part of the animus in these comments. The other part is probably envy.
GN should agree to this but with one condition, GN employees must use a timeclock for the 4 days they do work.
This only makes sense if it’s 10 hour days, 4 days per week. The GN is already completely inefficient. Taking away 8 hours of work time will make that even worse.
Your premise that more time at work equals more efficiency is not borne out by the evidence. In reality more time at work equals more wasted time and lower quality of life. There are plenty of studies that support this and plenty of jurisdictions that have successfully tried it.
Have a look:
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/06/1013348626/iceland-finds-major-success-moving-to-shorter-work-week
Comparing Nunavut’s undereducated and thoroughly unmotivated workforce to that of the UK, Australia and New Zealand is a joke.
“A trial of a four-day workweek in Britain, billed as the world’s largest, has found that an overwhelming majority of the 61 companies that participated from June to December will keep going with the shorter hours and that most employees were less stressed and had better work-life balance.
That was all while companies reported revenue largely stayed the same during the trial period last year and even grew compared with the same six months a year earlier, according to findings released this week.” (February, 21, 2023)
Source:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/4-day-work-week-trial-yields-overwhelming-success-in-u-k-researchers-say
Couldn’t have said it better.
“studies from the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand have shown positive results such as high productivity and support for a shorter workweek, with decreases in burnout and resignations.”
How are we supposed to measure these things if this data doesn’t even exist? 0+0 is still equal 0, right?
This is great, now how about the GN start measuring productivity, auditing time theft and hiring based on ability instead of identity? Well I think we all know that will never happen
What a joke
Ah the relevance of being…..irrelevant.
The evidence suggests increased productivity and retention overalll so not much to say on that. Yes lots of people think it is about being lazy and yes there are useless workers but when you have 40% vacancies think of all the qualified hires who might look to Nunavut because of these types of policies.
.
Adam you had a long time as minister to generate a remote work policy. The GN was radio silent on this the entire pandemic. It is so ingrained in the old guard that this will somehow mess up Inuit hiring that no one has clear judgment for deciding these policies. When a substantial portion of Inuit don’t live in Nunavut you’ll likely increase your Inuit employment rates with a real remote work policy. You may get qualified people who just don’t want to live in Nunavut, which is actually okay – it is not a way of life for everyone. Why should the public service operate at 60%? It is 2023 and instead of being new and forward thinking we are stuck with baby boomer era policy. News flash: there are a ton of high paying jobs that offer remote work, and tons of government jobs without remote work in provinces where you can get surgery without a ten hour plane ride or get your car’s oil changed in a reasonable time at a reasonable price. Why would anyone chose the GN?
Hmmm. If someone isn’t showing up to work or working it is a completely separate issue. If someone doesn’t show up to work or work for 5 days does it matter if they’re useless for 4 days instead. Hold their managers accountable bit for the GN is in an employment crises: lets reward those who do show up and attract those who are hard workers.
If you show up and do your work the reward is a pay cheque…. If you don’t show up to work, you should get a pink slip!
The ones who do show up for work are often overworked as they are doing their own work and the work of those who chose not to show up.
As a working mother, who had started returning the workforce when baby was still at the newborn stage, I’d say there could be some positive side to this. Spending more time with family is a big one , more then once I’ve heard coworkers/managers say “family first”, but how is that possible when your expected to show “on time” everyday, or a child/guardian gets sick, now your suddenly labeled as not reliable, or claiming to have a day off work because you feel like it. Also, not everyone slacks off, there are actual employees who shows initiative & works hard despite the lack of resources available (daycare, reliable sitters, short-staff, no housing available, list goes on). Ofcourse they’ll be bumps along the way, but I’d say this would be worth a shot to experiment.
If the Jeffy cans can make a song about how bad our Government operates, this is no surprise.
We need to start election Educated MLA’s with degrees so dumb ideas like this & the time change will not be discussed in detail.
Oh Nunavut, our home & failing land.
“But the Jerry Cans said” is not the flex you think it is…
While the notion of a four day work week is attractive, there is still a lack of data and consensus about the results. For a small work force, and someone who takes work seriously and works hard, I worry that a bulk of the work will fall on the to the few individuals who are high performers and those high performers will suffer burn out and leave. No where does it say a 4-day work week is “inevitable” so just adopt it now. As much work required at least 40 hours a week, especially to bring services up to a functional level, would the four days become 10 hour days? And would the government then have to resort to paying overtime to get basic services for Nunavummiut carried out? The lack of staffing should be addressed by asking better questions, such as, what is the average time that it takes to post a position? What is the average time it takes to fill a posted position? Is the current housing deficit barring the ability for government to attract talent? How many individuals are screened out of interviews and why? How many positions that are posted are not filled even after an interview process and why? It has been my personal experience that managers and directors inflate their own self worth and think that their selection of candidates is not up to par when that simply isn’t the case. They are lazy and entitled and don’t want to have to put in the work required to develop employees and so they don’t look at potential but only candidates who are “more qualified” and who they think will take least amount of effort to develop.
conduct this experiment in the nicer months, say April to August or follow that silly daylight savings time.
GN is already incompetent and slow enough.
Fold it. Hand the reins back b-4 ’99
No housing, so that’s why there are a lot of vacant jobs.
No surprise the government was all ears when they see the don’t say words out loud in their heads:
4DWW equals less work for less pay. Paying less hourly rate, fewer holidays and less pay increase if strike.
Less money in pocket, fewer flights, higher prices, and decreased travel makes it easier for the government to control people in one spot.
Will it also mean a massive reduction in services?
If teachers join the 4DWW, will kids have no school on Fridays? Because Fridays now become overtime days. Will teacher not be paid overtime? Or will low paid no-qualifications subs be dropped in for no teaching Fridays?
Guess with the government also pushing for guaranteed no-work income for all. And 4DWW, why spend dollars on education when can get less for less?
The government moving to 4DWW and if done remotely, it’ll magically, we’re told, will fill the mountain of unfilled jobs. Will remote workers even be required to live in Nunavut?
But who will fill these jobs? Online/offline job site owners state high qualified people want to make more money and look for 5-day week jobs.
Nunavut 4DWW… get less?
I think it’s worth looking into.
5 day work week 8 hours a day would be perfectly fine in a society where you can still afford to support a family on a single income and have a stay at home parent/spouse to take care of the home.
But nowadays where you can barely survive on two incomes, you end up spending the little time you have after work and on weekends just taking care of the house.
A 4 day work week or a shorter work day would help with that.
Also I see most comments here complain about how little work gets done or how little workers actually work. So if that’s the case then what’s the difference?
If you get 3 days worth of productivity in then it’s no different if you’re sitting at the office for 4 or 5 days.
All public servants in Nunavut, Municipal, Territorial or Federal should be required to wear body cameras to documents their entire of work.
We the tax payers deserve a right to know how our tax dollars are being spent.
Remember, We the tax payers are the “PUBLIC,” those who receive their pay cheques from Municipal Territorial or Federal Governments are all “PUBLIC SERVANTS.”
LOL at all the bs about GN employees being slack…. its not just the GN . come on now !
qia , NTI , feds , housing(when they had contracts) , literally everyone takes 30-45 min breaks to go to blackheart “biiiiig line up” , then go check post office, “oh look, another dumb line to stand in”
good grief