Professor John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health may not be high on your list of modern day heros, but he did something to be much admired recently.
He dared to declare that people should only work four days a week, reducing stress levels and allowing them to take more exercise and see their families.
All of which not only would make people happier, but also a whole lot more productive.
As one of Britain’s leading public health doctors Professor Ashton knows his stuff and believes that the UK is suffering from a “maldistribution of work” where some people work far too hard and others not at all.
Reducing the working week to four days would redress the balance, he argued.
“We need a four-day week so that people can enjoy their lives, have more time with their families, and maybe reduce high blood pressure because people might start exercising on that extra day,”
“When you look at the way we lead our lives, the stress that people are under, the pressure on time and sickness absence, [work-related] mental health is clearly a major issue.
“We should be moving towards a four-day week because the problem we have in the world of work is you’ve got a proportion of the population who are working too hard and a proportion that haven’t got jobs. We’ve got a maldistribution of work. The lunch hour has gone: people just have a sandwich at their desk and carry on working.”
As president of the Faculty of Public Health, which represents more than 3,000 specialists working in the NHS, local government and academia Prof Ashton is keen to raise awareness about the variety of mental health problems that can be caused by overwork.
We are often described as one of the hardest-working European countries, but Professor Ashton said that in some circumstances doing too many hours can cause excess anxiety, drive people to alcohol and cause relationship problems.
“If you’ve got two people in a couple working, they need to be able to work in such a way that they can spend time together with their children. It’s a nightmare,”
He's right, this is a huge problem for millions and Job Sharing is part of the solution.
