SINGAPORE: Billionaire entrepreneur Steve Cohen made the news this week for saying definitively that a four-day week will be coming to the workplace, in large part because of innovations that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is bringing on.
“My belief is a four-day workweek is coming. You know, between the advent of AI, generally, we hear from people that Fridays are just not — people are not as productive on Fridays,” Mr Cohen is quoted as saying in a CNBC interview earlier this month.
The inevitability of a shortened work week is the main reason why the CEO and chairman of Point72 Asset Management has made a large investment in the US golf startup league TGL, expecting that people will soon have more leisure time to tee up.
He added, however, that he is uncertain as to exactly when the shift to a four-day workweek will happen, but he thinks “it’s an eventuality… That’s just going into a theme of more leisure for people, which means golf rounds that go up, interest will go up, I guess courses will be crowded.”
However, if markets do stay open on Fridays, the traders who work for him are unlikely to be free on that day. But aside from them, he added, “I think the vast majority of people will get an opportunity, I think at some point, to have a three-game weekend.”
Aside from golf, other leisure activities would also be a good investment, he added. “Anything around, you know, I would say leisure, travel, experiences, all that type of that stuff, if people have more time.”
Watch Mr Cohen’s CNBC interview here.
An expectation of a four-day workweek is something that the billionaire hedge-fund boss has in common with Singaporeans, many of whom also expect that a shift is coming.
According to The People at Work 2023 study from ADP Research Institute, “For workers in Singapore, this much is crystal clear: flexible working arrangements are imperative. One in three Singaporean workers expects four-day work weeks to become the norm within the next five years.”
The study, which covered over 32,000 workers in 17 countries is one of the biggest surveys all over the globe.
Aside from a four-day work week, workers in Singapore expressed that they’d want hybrid work arrangements (34 per cent), full flexibility of hours based on productivity and results metrics (32 per cent), and the possibility of working from anywhere around the globe (29 per cent). As for their other expectations in the coming years, many look forward to added time off. /TISG