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BUSINESS ENGLISH · BUSINESS ISSUES · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE
FLEXIBLE
WORK DAY
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1 Warm up

In pairs, discuss the following questions.

1. What hours did you usually work five years ago?

2. What hours do you usually work now?
3. What is the best time of day for you to work? Why?

2 Focus on vocabulary

Part A: Match the vocabulary to the definitions.

1. hybrid working (n) a. a mixture of working from home and working in the office

2. realm (n) b. giving the body the vitamins and elements it needs to work
well
3. biorhythm (n) c. help someone to do something

4. nutritional (adj.) d. used in a specific situation for a particular task

5. facilitate (v) e. the ability of employees to learn about and use new digital
technology so as to adapt
6. digital dexterity (n) f. always being the same and not changing making it
uninteresting
7. monotonous (adj.) g. gather together in a group

8. dedicated (adj.) h. the natural pattern of how processes happen in the body,
affecting things like hunger and sleep
9. cluster (v) i. an area of interest, knowledge or activity

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Part B: Complete the questions with the vocabulary from Part A.

1. Which work have you done in the past that you found and boring?

2. Which would you prefer if you could choose: working in an office, working from home or
?

3. What does your company do to positive relationships between departments and

employees?

4. Do you like to be in situations where you are together with other people? Why/Why
not?

5. When is the best time for you to work so that you are in tune with your natural ?

6. Do you have a workspace in your home or company office? Or do you prefer to

work from different locations?

7. What have you done in the past few years to improve your to help you adapt to
new technologies?

8. Do you think that the majority of work in the future will be in the digital ? Or do
you think that there will still be a large number of people doing traditional work by hand? Why?

Now in pairs, answer the questions.

3 Listening for gist

Listen to the interview with a professor and tick all of the questions that you hear.

1. What effect will it have on the number of people working?

2. Do you think there will be a change in why we work?

3. What does this mean for management in the future?

4. What sort of person will be the most successful in future?

5. How will employees have to develop in future?

6. Are we in a new age of work?

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4 Listening comprehension
Part 1: Complete the table according to whether the professor did agree, disagree or didn’t mention
the point.

agree disagree didn’t mention

1. Remote and hybrid

working is more
popular than it used
to be.

2. There are many

similarities between
the way people
organised work in
pre-industrial times
and now.

3. After the industrial

revolution, your
manager’s opinion of
you became less
important.

4. More companies
will use software to
monitor employees’
work.

5. As monitoring
software gets more
sophisticated, it will
create more problems
for workers’ health.

6. Managers will
increasingly make
sure work is done well
and on time, as
employees will get
training and help from
the Internet.

7. Workers will need

to continually update
their knowledge of
digital systems.

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Part 2: Decide if the following statements are true (T) or false (F) according to the professor.

1. Automation could lead to work being less interesting for many people.

2. Managing the difference between our personal and professional lives will require greater effort.

3. Offices may be converted to living spaces.

4. People will start to require larger homes.

5. Populations in cities will continue to expand.

6. We wouldn’t have changed the way we work if it hadn’t been for the pandemic.

5 Skimming for gist

Match the sentences to gaps 1 - 4. There are more sentences than gaps.

A. The long work days continued with 12 hours per day, 6 days per week being the norm.

B. It has also reduced the culture of staying late at the office in order to be seen to be working.

C. When they returned at the end of the day, many were too tired to do household tasks such as
laundry and childcare.

D. Their labour was focused on the results of what they did rather than the hours they spent doing
it.

E. As the 1950s progressed, lawyers began to make more money than any other profession leading
to them being regarded with suspicion.

F. During the 1950s, lawyers noted that they weren’t making as much as doctors and dentists, due
to charging fixed rates for their services.

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Up with the sun?

How the working day has changed

I. Before the late 1700s, the majority of people did manual work on farms, growing food and looking after animals.
Society was largely dependent on sunlight as electric light wasn’t widely used until the 1800s, so people got up
early and worked during daylight hours until dark. However, their days were interspersed with breaks, meals and
1
naps to keep them going. After all, if they didn’t plant the crops in time, for example, they
wouldn’t grow. So there was a natural motivation to complete tasks.

II. When the Industrial Revolution arrived, increasing numbers of workers started spending their days in a factory.
2
Over time though, reforms meant that this was reduced to the 40-hour week that many still
use today. This was when the concept of working 9 - 5 came in: eight hours per day, five days per week. As
technology advanced and offices began to be used, the same hours were used there.
3
III. The American Bar Association (ABA) suggested that, just as factories were paid according to
the number of products they produced, lawyers should be paid according to units of work they did - the most
useful unit being the hour. So the concept of billable hours came in, meaning lawyers could charge according to
the amount of time they spent on a case rather than the service as a whole. It didn’t take long for lawyers to begin
working far longer hours, as now, the longer they spent working, the more money they were making for the firm.
This concept passed on to other industries and became embedded in attitudes to work.

IV. When the pandemic hit in 2020, it forced a lot of people to stay at home and deal with their responsibilities,
such as child care and household tasks, in one place. With no daily commute, employees were able to be more
flexible with the time they worked and adopt a more non-linear approach. Since then, with remote and hybrid
working now a much more accepted way of working than the period pre-pandemic, this has continued. Workers
have found that they are able to more easily manage their personal and professional lives by breaking up their
4
working periods through the day. There have been numerous studies showing that more hours
spent working doesn’t necessarily equate with a greater level of productivity. Yet if staying late is part of the office
culture you’re in, it’s hard to ignore. Working from home means that, just as with pre-industrial times, the focus is
once again results-focused rather than time-focused.

sources: abajournal.com, bestlifeonline.com, BBC Worklife

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6 Reading comprehension

Match the sentences to endings a - g.

1. Prior to the invention of electric light,

2. Following the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, increasing numbers of

3. As labour reforms took hold,

4. Due to concern that their earnings were below that of doctors and dentists,

5. The concept of a worker’s productivity being based on how long they spent working spread from

6. As a result of restrictions during the pandemic,

7. As with pre-industrial times, there’s been a shift to

a. lawyers to other professions.

b. the working day was generally from 9 am to 5 pm.

c. workers began to once again adopt a non-linear approach to the working day, mixing work with
personal responsibilities.

d. workers were dependent on sunlight and so worked as long as it was available.

e. workers completing tasks rather than measuring time spent.

f. lawyers began measuring their work in terms of time spent on a task.

g. workers worked long days in factories.

7 Talking point

In pairs, discuss the following questions.

1. Do you agree with the article that there is increasingly a shift to a non-linear work day in the way
people work? Do you think that’s true in your country? Why/Why not?
2. How has the way people work changed in your country over the past 300 years?
3. Do you agree that people will increasingly work from home in the future? Why/Why not?
4. What would be the ideal way to work for you personally? Why?

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8 Extended activity / homework

Read the question.

While much has been made of the changes to work hours caused by the pandemic, people
will always fundamentally need to have someone who measures the quality of their work.
This is the only motivation that really encourages good work. Therefore, the office and office
hours are not going anywhere soon as managers and employees will always need to be in the
same place.

To what extent do you agree with the above point of view?

You should:

• write at least 250 words

• check your grammar, spelling and punctuation.

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THE FLEXIBLE WORK DAY

Transcripts

3. Listening for gist

Host: Today we’re talking to Wendell D. Simons, a professor of sociology and history about
how our patterns of work are transforming. Professor Simons, welcome to the show and
thanks for taking the time to talk to us.

Professor: Thank you, it’s my pleasure.

Host: Now, obviously, the pandemic caused a big change in the way many of us work. We’ve
seen an increase in remote and hybrid working and that’s not going away. Are we in a
new age of work?

Professor: Yes, it’s very interesting. Yes, we are in some ways. But in other ways we are seeing a
return to pre-industrial times when people often worked for themselves growing crops
and tending to farm animals. That work was very focused on the results, purely because
if they didn’t work, they often didn’t eat. But they generally stayed at home and worked
throughout the day, taking breaks when they needed to eat, to care for children and so
on. This is very much what we’re seeing today, except in the digital realm. With the
industrial revolution came a long period of working under the supervision of employers.
How much money you earned was dependent on your boss’s opinion of you and how
hard they thought you were working. So there was more focus on the time you spent
than the results you were getting in many cases. With so many people working at home,
the dynamic has shifted again in the relationship between the manager and the employee.

Host: What does this mean for management in the future?

Professor: It is going to change their role somewhat. Traditionally, managers have monitored and
evaluated their employees. That becomes harder when they’re not in the office. We have
already seen an increase in the use of digital monitoring software which is set to continue.
However, I think that it will evolve to not just tell a manager how long someone was
logged in to the work computer, but also detect signs of overwork and stress by detecting
biorhythms and accessing nutritional information. It will help managers oversee a team
with different work styles and patterns of working who will often be connecting across
different time zones. The role of manager will become far more of a mentor role and they
will be required to facilitate their work rather than evaluate it, as most of that will be done
automatically.

Host: How will employees have to develop in future?

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Professor: With the speed of progress, there will be a far greater emphasis for employees on digital
dexterity over experience. Employees will need to continuously update their skills and
remain open to change. With many tasks becoming automated, most work is likely to
become cognitive, with higher-value work involving problem solving and communication.
This will also mean companies will need continuous professional development courses
which can be accessible to all, with time set aside for workers to complete them.

Host: Do you think there will be a change in why we work?

Professor: As we are already starting to see, people will start to attach more value to doing
meaningful work. This will be easier in some respects with more of the monotonous work
done by machines and technology. Yet there will also be challenges in terms of finding a
work-life balance. Although many people are happy to embrace working outside of the
traditional nine-to-five work hours, it does present issues over drawing the line between
the personal and professional.

Host: How about society? What changes do you think will be made to the way we set up our
communities in future?

Professor: Well, with reduced need for offices, but more need for workspaces at home, we could
see homes become more sizable and housing moving back into city centres to reclaim
the spaces that office blocks previously occupied. More and more people are going to
want at least one dedicated workspace in their home, if not two or more for families. As
we are already seeing in some cases, it may mean that populations of cities start to fall
as people look for less urban spaces to work from. Countries may become more evenly
populated in future rather than having a lot of people clustered into small communities.
Although the pandemic certainly increased the speed of change, I think we are heading
in the direction that we would have gone anyway. We are certainly at the beginning of a
new era.

Host: Thank you, Professor Wendell Simons. After the break, ... (fade)

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THE FLEXIBLE WORK DAY

Key

1. Warm up

5 mins.
This opens the class with students thinking about their work hours and if they have changed in the last five years
or not. You may want to bring this back to the class and do a quick poll on the typical work hours for everyone
and see if there has been a change in the last five years.

2. Focus on vocabulary

10 mins.
This highlights key vocabulary for understanding the article which students may need to use later in discussion
and writing.
Part A

1. → a. 2. → i. 3. → h. 4. → b. 5. → c.
6. → e. 7. → f. 8. → d. 9. → g.
Part B

1. monotonous
2. hybrid working
3. facilitate
4. clustered
5. biorhythms
6. dedicated
7. digital dexterity
8. realm

3. Listening for gist

5 mins.
This allows students to hear the interview and get the general idea ahead of completing the comprehension.

2. ✓ Do you think there will be a change in why we work?

3. ✓ What does this mean for management in the future?
5. ✓ How will employees have to develop in future?
6. ✓ Are we in a new age of work?

4. Listening comprehension

10 mins.
Part 1
Ask students to complete the questions after the first listening and then listen again to check their answers.
Answers to the table:
agree - sentences 2, 4, 7
disagree - sentences 3, 5, 6

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didn’t mention - sentences 1, 8

Part 2

1. False. ‘...people will start to attach more value to doing meaningful work. This will be easier in some respects
with more of the monotonous work done by machines and technology.’
2. True. ‘...there will also be challenges in terms of finding a work-life balance.’
3. True. ‘we could see ...housing moving back into city centres to reclaim the spaces that office blocks previously.’
4. True. ‘we could see homes become more sizable... More and more people are going to want at least one
dedicated workspace in their home, if not two or more for families.’
5. False. ‘...it may mean that populations of cities start to fall as people look for less urban spaces to work from.’
6. False. ‘Although the pandemic certainly increased the speed of change, I think we are heading in the direction
that we would have gone anyway.’

5. Skimming for gist

5 mins.
Set a time limit so that students are encouraged to skim-read rather than read in detail.

1. D. Their labour was focused on the results of what they did rather than the hours they spent doing it.
2. A. The long work days continued with 12 hours per day, 6 days per week being the norm.
3. F. During the 1950s, lawyers noted that they weren’t making as much as doctors and dentists, due to charging
fixed rates for their services.
4. B. It has also reduced the culture of staying late at the office in order to be seen to be working.
Article sources:
www.abajournal.com - Accounting ’rogue outliers’ seek to change billable hour
https://bestlifeonline.com/9-to-5/
The non-linear workdays changing the shape of productivity - BBC Worklife

6. Reading comprehension

10 mins.
Ask students to read the article more carefully and use the information to match the sentences with the correct
endings so that they make sense and are grammatically correct. Some combinations are possible that are grammatically
correct but do not correspond with the information in the article.

1. → d. 2. → g. 3. → b. 4. → f.
5. → a. 6. → c. 7. → e.

7. Talking point

10 mins.
Ask students to discuss the questions in pairs or small groups.

8. Extended activity / homework

40 mins.+.
Ask students to plan, write and edit their essay based on their work during the class. Be sure to give them feedback
on their work.

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