跟读练习: Is a four-day week the future of work? - What in the World podcast, BBC World Service - 通过YouTube学习英语口语
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If you look at what the World Health Organization says,
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If you look at what the World Health Organization says,
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regularly working long hours raises the risk of stroke,
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of heart disease and even premature death.
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Japan, for example, has such a strong culture of overwork that they even have a term for death by overwork.
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Hey, I'm Hannah and this is What's in the World,
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the podcast for all of your news,
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trends and talking points from the BBC World Service.
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What if every week we could have three mornings of lions instead of two.
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The four-day work week is being trialled across the world
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and for some people it feels like they're finally hitting snooze on the burnout.
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A recent study found that people who work four days instead of five say
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that they feel more productive and they feel better and happier working fewer hours.
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But does this actually work in practice for every type of job and in every culture?
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And if the results are so clear then why aren't we doing it already?
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Well here in the studio Here with me to break this down is the BBC's global health reporter, Sophia Betteazer.
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Hello, welcome.
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Hi.
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Why do we even work five days in the first place?
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Something that a lot of people are probably asking.
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It just feels like a routine that we've got ourselves into.
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Yeah, and a lot of people don't question it, right?
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But it's sort of only been the case for the last 100 years.
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Before that, people actually used to work six or even seven days a week.
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So yeah, it was worse.
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So what happened is that at the beginning of the 20th century,
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factory workers started started demanding shorter hours.
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And that's how the five day week came about.
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And it was then popularised by big companies like Ford,
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which actually realised that if they gave people two days off,
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they would come back more productive.
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But if you think about it,
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100 years ago, we were a society mostly based on agriculture,
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on factory workers, and things have changed massively.
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And yet working hours have stayed essentially the same.
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That's really interesting.
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If there can be change from seven or six to five,
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then maybe there can actually be change from five to four.
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And you have been speaking to researchers and campaigners who have been trying to make this happen.
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And there have been all of these trials.
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How did they work?
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The four day week is based on a principle that's called 100-80-100.
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So what that means is that you work for 100% of the pay,
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but only 80% of the time,
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as long as you keep up 100% of your productivity, right?
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And the key here is that it's not about crumbing in five days worth of work into four.
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So it's not about doing really long hours.
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And actually, what's interesting is that research says that that's actually got,
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that has the opposite effect.
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So that makes, that leads to stress, to burnout.
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So it's not about that.
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It's about working smarter and cutting waste.
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So, for example, shorter meetings,
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fewer meetings, better use of technology.
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And what campaigners for the four-day week are saying is that with AI now automating a lot of our tasks,
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this is a really good time.
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And now more than ever,
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it is really possible to achieve that 180-100 goal.
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And there was a study into this.
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What did they find?
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So the study is the biggest of its kind.
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So essentially researchers from Boston College looked at 141 companies that decided to trial the four day week.
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And they looked, so this was across multiple countries,
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the US, Canada, the UK,
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Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.
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And what they looked at is four components.
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They looked at job satisfaction,
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burnout, physical health and mental health.
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And they found that overwhelmingly,
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people reported being happier, being more satisfied
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and being sort of more better at their jobs when they switched to a four day week.
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And what's interesting is that the trial is over now,
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but about 90% of the people that took part decided to keep doing it.
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And the companies let them.
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Yeah.
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That's amazing.
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Because I would have thought that was one of the big barriers to this.
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Bosses wanting things, not wanting change, shall we say.
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But the countries you mentioned,
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first of all, they're all Western countries.
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Something we should probably talk about a little bit.
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And the second thing is that in this study, it was self-reported, right?
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So people might have just said that they were just as productive because,
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to be honest, everyone...
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What would you say, right?
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I would like a four-day work week.
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I'm really productive.
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If I could do five episodes of the podcast in four days,
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just give me a chance.
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Well, that's the thing.
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The results the research has got came from employees.
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So there is a chance that they might have exaggerated the benefits because they wanted that extra day off.
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And honestly, I mean, I don't blame them.
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Right.
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And then the other thing is that all the companies that took part in the trial,
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they did it voluntarily.
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So I think when you talk about a barrier being bosses who are skeptical,
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clearly they were already kind of open minded and thinking about this idea.
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And then the other thing,
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as you said precisely, this sort of trial took part only in Western countries.
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So it doesn't really take into account how developed a country is or what work culture looks like in that country.
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For example, if you take Africa,
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a lot of people in many African countries work in the informal sector in mining.
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And so, I mean, they're nowhere near this sort of conversation.
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Were all of the companies that trialled this out,
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were they kind of standard office jobs, quite flexible ones?
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Really, it was mostly office jobs,
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but it was also restaurants,
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for example, or care sectors.
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It was a bit of a mix,
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but it is easier to implement this in an office job.
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The size of a company also matters.
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So, for example, a startup that employs 20 people,
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for them it's a lot easier to decide to try and work four days a week.
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But if you've got a big corporation with offices around the world,
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different departments, different time zones,
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a bit like the BBC,
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it's really difficult and it will definitely not look the same for everybody.
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So there are limitations to this.
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You've been speaking to people in the companies that have done some of these trials.
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What do they say?
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How do they find it?
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Yes, I wanted to speak to some employers who kind of said to me that they implemented it and it worked.
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And I spoke to Chau,
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who is from South Africa and runs a counselling centre in Cape Town.
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And he said that for him,
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implementing the four-day week was like it changed everything.
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He was managing a staff of 56 people,
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psychologists who worked at a university of 30,000 people.
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They were severely burned out.
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They were calling in sick all the time.
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They found it really difficult because,
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I mean, South Africa is one of the countries that ranks at the bottom when it comes to mental health.
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So they were constantly exposed to other people's trauma.
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and you know, they were really struggling.
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So he decided to implement a four day week.
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And interestingly, he got a lot of pushback from his employees.
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They said, well, this is never going to work.
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Yeah, they were like, this is great in theory,
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but it's never going to work.
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But he said that he did and that the results were phenomenal.
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So he said that in the year before the trial,
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the team logged 51 sick days.
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And in the year of the four-day work week,
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that dropped to just four.
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And he said that people had more time to themselves,
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so they were healthier, they were happier.
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But he said they were also better at their jobs
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because they were more focused and they showed a lot more empathy in the therapy sessions.
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Were there any companies from the trials that said we tried it out, it didn't work?
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Well, 10% of the companies in the trial decided not to implement it.
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So that's a minority, but that number is still there.
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And it does happen.
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One example is Microsoft.
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So in 2019, Microsoft in Japan implemented a four-day workweek as a trial.
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And the results were really positive.
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And in fact, productivity did not drop at all.
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but they still decided to bring back the five day week.
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So, you know, it is a long process.
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How would it work in a restaurant or a healthcare job?
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It's really hard and campaigners admit that that's one of the big limitations.
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So a hospital, for example,
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you can't just shut down a hospital for three days,
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but it doesn't mean it's impossible.
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So instead of maybe doing four days a week,
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it's about doing short hours or readjusting how you do shift work.
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So it is possible.
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Because shift work is one of the things that leads to massive burnout, isn't it?
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I mean, actually, I think there are studies that show that the way we work isn't actually very good for us.
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Yeah, so there's a solid body of research that shows that if you work long hours,
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that's really bad for your health.
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It leads to stress, anxiety,
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burnout, but it's more than that.
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So if you look at what the World Health Organization says,
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they say that regularly working long hours raises the risk of stroke,
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of heart disease and even premature death.
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And that's what campaigners for the four day week say.
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They say that the way that we work now,
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five days out of seven is actually bad for our health.
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And that, you know, when we have more time to ourselves,
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we are more physically active,
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we spend more time with our family, with our friends.
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And so when we go back to work,
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we are more focused, we are more energized.
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So it's not only better for our health but it actually makes us better at our jobs they say.
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They say.
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Around the world people work in very different ways
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and in China I was reading about the 996 which is people working from 9am till 9pm six days a week.
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I mean there are cultures that have it a lot worse off.
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Yeah and I think that's a really interesting point
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because all the experts I spoke to said
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that cultural difference is actually the biggest barrier to this because they're so deeply ingrained into who we are,
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how we grew up, where we live.
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So China, the 996 culture,
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that means people, most people work from 9am to 9pm,
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six days a week.
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You've got Japan, for example.
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So Japan has such a strong culture of overwork that they even have a term for death by overwork.
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Death by, people die from overwork.
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I mean, I think around the world it happens,
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but I think Japan just documents it.
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So it's not that it happens just in Japan and that's haroshi.
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People come in early, leave late,
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even if they have nothing to do.
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It's just how it is.
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And there are all sorts of benefits that people are not even taking because it looks bad.
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So for example, men in Japan are allowed one year paternity leave,
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which is very general.
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Most of them don't take it because it looks bad.
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There are some countries that already have fewer working hours,
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shorter working hours like France.
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I mean they brought that in years ago.
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Yeah and interestingly trials for the four-day week are happening or have happened across the world.
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Not just in places like France or Germany or Spain but Botswana,
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the Dominican Republic, Brazil, South Africa.
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So there's definitely an interest in that.
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So if you take Iceland,
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that's a really good example.
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In Iceland now 90% of workers have a right to a shorter work week.
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What about the money though?
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Businesses might say that having people working a few hours makes them less money.
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Yes and I think especially in kind of lower level jobs,
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I was talking about mining earlier,
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evidence shows that employers like their priority is not really workers well-being,
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is sort of getting as much as they can out of their employees.
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So that's a different conversation.
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You could argue that when people work less, they are more productive.
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There is some evidence that says that you can be even more productive.
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But yeah, that's another limitation.
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In a customer-facing role, for example,
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say you work in a supermarket or you're a taxi driver,
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if you work fewer hours,
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you literally have fewer customers and then you actually bring in less money.
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That's a pretty strong argument, isn't it?
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Yeah, I think if you're self-employed, absolutely.
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Oh, if you're self-employed, yeah,
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that would be really, really tricky to implement.
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I mean, it would take quite a lot of self-control, wouldn't it?
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Yeah, it's definitely not a one size fits all.
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It isn't.
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I'm really interested in how this conversation is happening now because,
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gosh, not that long ago was the dreaded COVID pandemic and that changed things for all of us.
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I mean, there was, you know,
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the Zoom meetings and working from home.
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And now we've got this massive cultural shift that is AI
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and people who are joining the workforce for the first time
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or who joined in the last few years they have very different expectations and priorities.
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Absolutely.
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Younger people are questioning more and more the nine to five office-based work model.
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They have completely different priorities and ideas about what work means and what sort of the purpose of work should be.
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So for them, what's top of the agenda is work-life balance.
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You know, across the world,
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one of the first questions
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that Gen Z job seekers ask is what the working hours are and whether there's options to do remote work.
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So that's a really interesting shift.
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And in Japan, you know,
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we were talking about Japan and how the culture of overwork is deeply ingrained.
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Now, younger men are taking paternity leave more,
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so about 30%, which is still quite low.
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But if you think about the fact that it used to be zero a few years ago,
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so there is a change there.
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And what's interesting though to me is that it's not just younger workers.
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There was this global study that came out earlier this year,
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which showed that for the first time ever,
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work-life balance outranks pay when it comes to sort of what the top priority for your job should be.
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And that's not just Gen Z,
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it's millennials, it's boomers, it's Gen X.
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So we are, I think,
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seeing a change across generations when it comes to what people think their priorities should be when it comes to their careers.
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Sophia, thank you so much.
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Thanks for having me.
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That's it from me today.
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But if you like this episode,
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please do subscribe and share and check out some of our other episodes.
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I'm Hannah.
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This is What in the World from the BBC World Service.
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We'll see you next time.
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关于本课
在本课中，学习者将通过观察和模仿一段关于四天工作制的播客内容，来提高他们的英语听力和口语表达能力。学习者将练习发音、语调和节奏，同时加深对工作文化和社会变化的理解。这种方式尤其适合那些希望通过看YouTube学英语来提升语言能力的学习者。
关键词汇与短语
- 四天工作制 - Four-day work week
- 加班 - Overwork
- 生产力 - Productivity
- 工作时间 - Working hours
- 疲惫感 - Burnout
- 100-80-100原则 - 100-80-100 principle
- 健康风险 - Health risks
- 文化变化 - Cultural changes
练习建议
在练习过程中，建议您使用英语影子跟读的方法：首先，聆听视频中的短句，然后重复这些句子，以提高您的发音和流畅度。由于视频的语速适中，您可以在需要时暂停，并反复聆听难以理解的部分。尝试在每个句子的最后模仿说话者的语调和情感，这样可以更有效地提高您的提高英语发音能力。同时，您可以借助shadowspeak技巧，仔细分析说话者的节奏，通过模仿他们的语速来增强自己的口语能力。
最后，注意观察在谈论工作文化及其历史变化时的语境。这不仅能拓宽您对相关话题的理解，也能让您的语言表达更为丰富。利用这种看YouTube学英语的方式，逐渐提升自己的英语水平，进而能在现实生活中自信地交流。
什么是跟读法？
跟读法 (Shadowing) 是一种有科学依据的语言学习技巧，最初开发用于专业口译员的培训，并由多语言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。这个方法简单而强大：您在听英语母语原声的同时立即大声重复——就像是一个延迟1-2秒紧跟说话者的影子。与被动听力或语法练习不同，跟读法强迫您的大脑和口腔肌肉同时处理并模仿真实的讲话模式。研究表明它能显着提高发音准确性，语调，节奏，连读，听力理解和口语流利度——使其成为雅思口语备考和真实英语交流最有效的方法之一。