Company X has just switched to a four-day workweek, mandating that employees work ten hours per day from Monday to Thursday instead of eight hours per day from Monday to Friday. Although the policy is new, Company X claims that the policy will help to increase profits by shutting down offices on Fridays and to boost employee morale by reducing commuting time to and from work each week.
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The company X has made a claim that by switching to a 4-day work week, and closing offices on Friday, the company will make increased profits, however, this is a big jump to make. To conclusively realise the impact of work week versus profits, we need to understand if the two are correlated. If company X, has historically proven data, that the company’s profits are mostly made within the 4 days of the work week, and the reduction in operational costs of shutting the office on Friday, will help the company in seeing increased profits, it will strengthen the claim. In proving this, Company X should adress, the type of business industry as well, because companies in the recreation industry might turn greater profits on days like Friday. And such profits may not be compensated only by determining the operational/infrastructure costs of shutting down on Friday. As opposed to trading companies, which might be still better suited to benefit from a four-day work week.
Another assumption, that Company X has made is, by reducing the commute time to and and from work, employee morale will be boosted. However, to truly support this argument, we need to understand whether the commute is a significant issue for the employees. If employees of Company X are all closely located to the company, and consider travel to office, as a part of a healthy walk regimen, then the entire assumption of boosting morale breaks. Instead the company has now reduced a physical activity from the lives of employees, which they valued.
The company has assumed that the increase in work hours from 8 to 10, will not be a significant burden for employees, as long as they are getting an off on Friday. Depending on the industry of Company X, ranging from physical to mental spectrum, it should be evaluated what are the impacts of a 10 hour shift on the productivity of employees. Studies have shown that for mentally intensive tasks, humans can work in a state of deep focus for around 5-6 hours, and remaining 2 hours of an 8 hour shift, are generally booked for less intensive tasks. However if we find the Company X is very well positioned between mental and physical task spectrum, it can benefit from a 10 hour long shift, by providing a sufficient break for its employees, to achieve both kind of tasks: mental and physical.
It is also unstated by Company X, but an assumption nonetheless, that the way to boost morale and cutting down commute is achievable only by the 4 day work week. Whereas there may be other policies such as Working Remotely which may solve the problems of commute, morale and yet allow company to turn profits. In the post-COVID era, working remotely is definetely more accessible than ever before, and company X might be benefit from evaluating such alternatives.
Company X should support the claims they have made, by sharing some data points, on how they reached to the conclusion of profits, and morale and whether the data is significant statistically or truly representative of interests of the company and its employees. If Company X can answer the open questions such as if shutting down of office will create a profit by saving infrastructure costs, a 10 hour per day shift does not impact employee productivity owing to company’s industry, and reduction in commute time will be a morale booster, then it’s policy will be a welcome one and both employees and owners can be confident in adopting the same.
- Company X has just switched to a four day workweek mandating that employees work ten hours per day from Monday to Thursday instead of eight hours per day from Monday to Friday Although the policy is new Company X claims that the policy will help to increa 63
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- People should question the rules of authority as opposed to accepting them passively Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take In developing and 66
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 80 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 590 350
No. of Characters: 2777 1500
No. of Different Words: 247 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.928 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.707 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.679 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 209 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 162 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 90 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 31.053 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.378 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.355 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.516 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.119 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 61, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...that Company X has made is, by reducing the commute time to and and from work, employee mor...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 81, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: and
...ade is, by reducing the commute time to and and from work, employee morale will be boos...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 204, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...argument, we need to understand whether the commute is a significant issue for the employee...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 446, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Instead,
...e assumption of boosting morale breaks. Instead the company has now reduced a physical ...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 550, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...erally booked for less intensive tasks. However if we find the Company X is very well p...
^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 65, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ompany X, but an assumption nonetheless, that the way to boost morale and cutting...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, may, nonetheless, so, still, then, well, whereas, kind of, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 23.0 12.9520958084 178% => OK
Conjunction : 21.0 11.1786427146 188% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 79.0 55.5748502994 142% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2862.0 2260.96107784 127% => OK
No of words: 589.0 441.139720559 134% => OK
Chars per words: 4.85908319185 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.92639038232 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8657053837 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 267.0 204.123752495 131% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.453310696095 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 880.2 705.55239521 125% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 9.0 1.67365269461 538% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 31.0 22.8473053892 136% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 69.628694693 57.8364921388 120% => OK
Chars per sentence: 150.631578947 119.503703932 126% => OK
Words per sentence: 31.0 23.324526521 133% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.73684210526 5.70786347227 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 17.0 8.20758483034 207% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 0.0 6.88822355289 0% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.32041377183 0.218282227539 147% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.108324516132 0.0743258471296 146% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0642171668333 0.0701772020484 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.181336038304 0.128457276422 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0459208069316 0.0628817314937 73% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.0 14.3799401198 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.47 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.5 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.61 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 128.0 98.500998004 130% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.4 11.1389221557 129% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.