Time called on 40-hour work week in challenge to region’s business leaders

While the Industrial Revolution helped reduce the working week from 100 hours down to an average of 40 hours, Sara Boueri, HR, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (RAKTDA), challenged leaders in the region to reduce that further.

Boueri was speaking at the forum at the JW Marriott Marquis Hotel in Dubai, as part of a panel discussion on ‘Tech solutions, high performance tactics for connected teams’, alongside Andy Fieldhouse, author of Getting Teamwork.

“Henry Ford came in through the industrial revolution that was catalysed by a stock market crash,” she said. “They probably never thought it would it be possible to go from 100 hours to 40. where the future is going, 40 hours is no longer going to be the case, and then 150 years or 100 years from now, people are going to look back and say, ‘they used to work for 40 hours a week?’

Want your staff to be more efficient – treat them right.
So says Sara Boueri of @RAKTourism – recently voted one of the happiest places to work in the UAE.

More insight from the AB Future of Work Forum. pic.twitter.com/n17lbpQyit

— ArabianBusiness.com (@ArabianBusiness) April 28, 2021

“Henry Ford’s name will be remembered forever for changing the way we do work, for turning a 100-hour week to 40 hours. Don’t you guys want to be forever remembered even first?”

As the world continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, Covid-19 has forced everyone to re-evaluate the concept of a 9-5 working day – indeed, Boueri joined a chorus of industry professionals in claiming such a concept no longer exists, that leaders should be looking at more “project-based tasks” as a more valuable alternative.

Working from home was thrust upon the global population at the start of the pandemic, with video technology taking over as a result of stringent health and safety guidelines to mitigate the spread of coronavirus.

According to figures from the company, the Zoom mobile app was downloaded 485 million times in 2020, while the number of annual meeting minutes on Zoom has grown from 200 million in 2013 to over 3.3 trillion today.

Fieldhouse revealed that a survey he carried out showed that 25 percent of people were partially or always working remotely before the pandemic; that has now increased to 95 percent, while 65 percent said they would continue working remotely.

Andy Fieldhouse, author of Getting Teamwork

However, while some remain working from home, working remotely, or in a hybrid fashion, Fieldhouse said the downside was an increasing sense of isolation among employees.

He said: “We’re creating or innovating greater technological ability to actually collaborate and work together and communicate which allows us to work remotely, but it is making us remote, so all these wonderful tools that promote and enable collaboration, somehow, as human beings is making us more isolated.”

A recent mental health survey from Arabian Business, in association with BUPA Global and Oman Insurance Company, revealed that one of the things most people were offered while working remotely was a comfortable chair or a desk to work on; while most really wanted help, advice, tips and tools to support them emotionally and mentally.

RAKTDA was recently named the ‘Government Entity with the Happiest Work Environment’ in the emirate by the Sheikh Saqr Program for Government Excellence (SSPGE), rising up from 12th place the previous year.

Boueri said: “In order to get people to perform, and in order to get the business to perform. The only thing you need to do is just ask, what do you need for me? What do you need me to stop? What do you need me to start and what do you need me to continue?”