Businesses say they won't stop using four-day weeks after testing them

Want to try working four days a week? Stack this on the manager's desk.

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The vast majority of Britons Companies who took part in the four-day workweek experiment stated they will continue using it after noting significant decreases in employee churn and absenteeism while generally maintaining productivity over the course of the six-month trial.

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In one of the largest four-day workweek trials to date, 61 British companies with 2,900 employees, including banks, fast-food restaurants, and marketing firms, paid one day off every week to determine if they could accomplish the same amount of work while working fewer hours more efficiently. According to a new report from the study's authors, more than 90% said they would continue experimenting with the shortened week, while 18 intended to make it permanent.

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There has been discussion of working fewer than the traditional 40 hours per week over five days for decades. Since both businesses and employees look for new and improved methods to work, the idea has recently garnered new impetus. As of Covid-19, remote and hybrid work arrangements are more often accepted. Currently, some firms and policymakers are looking into whether a shorter workweek might increase employee loyalty and well-being.

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"At first, this was about the pandemic burnout that many companies were experiencing. For many of them, it's now more of a retention and recruiting concern, according to Boston College economist and sociologist Juliet Schor. Her team collaborated on the study alongside researchers from Cambridge University, the nonprofit advocacy group 4 Day Week Global, the U.K.-based think tank Autonomy, which focuses on problems like the future of work and climate change, and the nonprofit organization 4 Day Week Worldwide.

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A World Test

Recently, businesses in the U.S. and Canada finished a smaller four-day workweek pilot project that was coordinated by the U.K. trials of a similar nature are being planned in Australia, Brazil, and other countries as well. Unilever, a corporation that makes consumer goods, recently tested the idea in its offices in New Zealand, while the government of Spain proposes to pay businesses to try out a four-day workweek. Researchers in Iceland discovered that most workers maintained or enhanced their productivity and reported less stress in a survey involving more than 2,500 individuals from various businesses.

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Adoption is faced with a lot of challenges. The majority of four-day workweek experiments have been conducted by small employers. Larger businesses often haven't adopted the idea. And some employees at some businesses that have adopted four-day workweeks have mentioned finding it difficult to do everything in that time.

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within the UK. According to the study, which took place between June and November, the majority of employees didn't work harder. Instead, they and their managers worked to streamline the workday by reducing meetings and giving staff members more time to concentrate on finishing assignments.

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Employers gave their productivity and performance a six-month average score of 7.5 on a scale of 0 (extremely negative) to 10 (highly positive). Halfway through the trial, a survey was done, and the results revealed that 46% of businesses claimed that their business productivity had stayed about the same, 34% had reported a slight improvement, and 15% had reported a big improvement.

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Around half of the employees reported no change, while 39% claimed to be less anxious than they were before the pilot program began. 37% also acknowledged an increase in physical health, and nearly half only noticed improvements in their mental health.

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Meeting Zapping

Claire Daniels, the chief executive of Leeds, England-based Trio Media, a digital marketing agency with 13 employees, said she enrolled in the study to determine whether a better-organized workweek would increase productivity. She and her team documented and examined their workweek before beginning, coming to the conclusion that 20% of it was lost to unnecessary meetings, business travel, and other inefficiencies.

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So right away, she continued, "we realized we weren't going to have to jam extra work into the four days.

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Putting everyone on a Monday through Thursday and Tuesday through Friday schedule, with a partner for each employee to cover their absences, Ms. Daniels claimed that she no longer holds lengthy daily team meetings with her employees. Also, depending on how crucial their participation was, staff would drop in for segments of longer meetings with clients and several presentations before leaving again.

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The hardest aspect, according to her, was for personnel to keep themselves from reverting to their former work mindsets or routines. Overall, productivity was the same or slightly improved, and revenue increased 47% from the same time last year, according to her.

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Before making a permanent change, Ms. Daniels stated that she would like to extend the trial by another six months, but added, "I don't see us going back to a conventional five-days-a-week approach."