Abstract The concept of balancing work and life has been actively discussed for over 150 years. Whereas people today are experiencing difficulties managing their work and life and the time spent on each, something that is causing them feelings of stress, fatigue and conflicts between their job and life sphere appear. This is an indication of a non-working work-life balance. Meanwhile, organizations both globally, and in Sweden, are getting more pressure on how the social environment and social aspects of an organization is doing and being handled, i.e., the employees and their wellbeing. New directives, like the EU's CSRD, are reshaping how organizations approach social sustainability alongside the established CSR framework, prompting a heightened focus on employee wellbeing and work-life balance. The purpose of this research paper was to gain a broader understanding if the concept and implementation of a four-day work week (4DWW) could help improve and affect the work-life balance among Swedish employees. To conduct this study, both a literature review and a theoretical framework were performed. The literature review was conducted to gather information on the concept of a 4DWW, work-life balance, CSRD, CSR and I-CSR. Whereas the theoretical framework presents work-life balance theories. Further, seven in-depth interviews were conducted with people living between the north and south of Sweden and that worked full-time Monday through Friday. The respondents were given the choice to choose between an in-person interview or a video call. The answers were to be analyzed using a thematical analysis method. The results indicated that there is a need for Swedish organizations to improve how they work with providing work-life balance to their employees since the results showed that full-time workers today are experiencing, among other things: lack of time, tiredness and not having time for leisure. However, all respondents expressed that a 4DWW, speculatively thinking, would help them improve their work-life balance and were positive against the idea of working four instead of five days a week. This also had the respondents thinking they would become more excited and productive at work and have more time left for other important areas of life. Finally, what was found was that the 4DWW concept does not solve all the problems faced by employees regarding work-life balance but would, speculatively, solve many of them.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-227142 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Wictorin, Amanda, Vallgren, Maria |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Företagsekonomi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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