Have you noticed Sydney’s trains are half full-on Monday? It’s because Sydneysiders have decided to take up “bare minimum Mondays”, a concept of prioritising self-care over productivity.
New data on Sydney trains reveals that Monday is the most popular day for commuters to work from home.
Meanwhile, on social media platforms like TikTok, there has been a trending concept of “bare minimum” on a Monday to relieve stress. The hashtag “bare minimum” has gained more than 2 million views.
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In this episode of This Arvo In Sydney, LiSTNR journalist Amy Goggins and a string of experts also joined in to discuss the merits of bare minimum Mondays and whether it would be a ruse to finally adopt a four-day work week.
Goggins said the “bare minimum Monday” concept was first created by TikTok content creator Marris Mayes, who said the idea aimed to ease into the work week by prioritising self-care over workloads.
I decided on Sunday night, what are the bare minimum work tasks that I have to accomplish tomorrow, and then I only hold myself accountable to finish those bare minimum tasks,”
Mayes said.
Another interesting concept of the “four-day-week” encourages people to focus on work-life balance.
The 2023 Robert Half Salary Guide showed that 71 per cent of Australian employees would support a four-day-week.
Sydney recruiters also found that 34 per cent of employees expected their organisation to implement a “four-day-week” within the next five years.
What the numbers suggest is that about 70 per cent of the people have come back to the offices on Monday and Friday, about 80 per cent on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Tuesday,”
one of the experts said.
Despite the benefits of a “four-day-week”, the research found that only small to medium-sized businesses would be more likely to get on board, using it as a lure to attract and retain good staff.
Hosted by Sacha Barbour, This Arvo in Sydney is a 10 to 12 minute daily news podcast made just for Sydney! Listen now on the Listnr app.