The 4-day workweek gains steams as a perk, after positive results from a large trial
Thursday’s the new Friday?... The four-day workweek is #trending. Driving the hype: one of the largest trials of a four-day workweek ever conducted. In the six-month study, 61 British companies across industries gave 2.9K workers one paid day off each week. The goal: determine whether they could be as productive while working less, but also more effective (think: fewer meetings). The results are in — and they’re promising:
More than 90% of companies in the study said they’d continue testing the four-day week after seeing major reductions in turnover and absenteeism, in addition to productivity holding mostly steady. And 18 planned to make it permanent.
Happy days: The pilot found that many workers slept better, were less stressed, and were less likely to say they didn’t have time to care for their loved ones. Male workers spent 27% more time on childcare, compared to a rise of 13% for female workers.
Long weekend… short week. Four-day-week experimentation isn’t just happening in the UK: companies in the US and Canada recently completed a smaller trial, and pilots are underway in Australia and Brazil. The Spanish government even plans to pay companies to try it. But so far, most companies that have experimented with short weeks are small. Many large employers haven’t embraced short weeks, but Unilever tested four-day work at its New Zealand offices.
Four days’ work could become the new perk… The pandemic transformed the working world, making employers more accepting of flexible arrangements like remote and hybrid work. Four-day weeks could be a new way to attract and retain talent in a still strong labor market. But widespread adoption could be hard: it probably wouldn’t work for all businesses, and it’s possible that productivity could go down long term once decisive trial periods end.