“nu har vi jo den der åndssvage firbenede krikke der”: Work-life balance og 4-dages arbejdsuge på Roskilde Kirkegårde

Abstract

The assignment deals with the possibilities for introducing a 4-day work week at Roskilde Kirkegårde. Roskilde Kirkegårde is a medium sized public company with around 30 employees, most of which are gardeners.
The assignment is analysing the exiting flexibility with respect to working hours, possibilities of working from home and self-managing teams. The theoretical background for the analysis is mainly based upon theories of work-life balance, flexible working conditions, change management, opposition to changes and social capital.
A part of the assignment is a state-of-the-art analysis of 4-day work week, especially with focus on manual labor. The main results of the state-of-the-art analysis are that the number of scientific papers dealing with 4-day work week is limited, there’s little statistical evidence and no articles dealing with a 4-day work week with reduced working hours were found.
The analysis was conducted based on a combination of document analysis, a survey, and semi structured interviews. The conclusions were that it’s not possible to introduce a compressed 4-day work week at Roskilde Kirkegårde and there will be substantial barriers to introducing a 4-day work week with reduced working hours. The major barriers are the difficulties of documenting efficiency gains due to lack of key performance indicators and a low social capital.