The standard 40-hour, five-day workweek could be on the outs as a new United Kingdom study released results indicating that a 32-hour, 4-day workweek “was a HUGE success” for 62 companies.
A nonprofit called ”4 Day Week Global” created in 2018 has been conducting pilot programs like this one done in the U.K. and plans to do a lot more all over the world.
Sixty-one UK companies from all different industries tried out the 4-day week for six months — from June to December in 2023 — ranging from fast-food restaurants to corporate offices. And 56 of those are continuing the new schedule for longer time periods, with at least 18 adopting the policy permanently, affecting close to 3,000 employees.
Those are some pretty drastic numbers, so why change? What are the benefits?
Why are companies adopting a four-day workweek?
The study highlighted that employees found more balance between social and work life without having to cram everything into two or fewer days.
Plus, with the extra breathing room, they enjoyed their jobs more and were better rested, reducing stress levels for 39% of employees.
This leads us to another exciting find.
Those companies that adopted the four-day workweek in the study experienced a drop of 57% in employee turnover rates. With the Great Resignation and more employees experiencing burnout, this is a really significant number.
“We feel really encouraged by the results, which showed the many ways companies were turning the four-day week from a dream into a realistic policy, with multiple benefits,” said David Frayne, a research associate on the trial and at the University of Cambridge, reported NPR.
Could it be the solution to burnout?
And the real kicker? This didn’t come at any cost to employers.
“In fact, companies’ REVENUE ROSE by an average of 35% when compared to previous years,” tweeted 4 Day Week Global.
It doesn’t have to be a Friday
An interesting thing to point out is that not every company can let all of their employees off at the same time, like the common model of taking Fridays off. I think about my own job of covering news stories that happen in real-time.
But there are options.
“Results are largely steady across workplaces of varying sizes, demonstrating this is an innovation which works for many types of organisations,” said Juliet Schor, the project’s lead researcher of the UK study and a Boston College professor.
There were several different ways that the companies in the study customized their four-day workweek like staggering employees’ schedules in order to accommodate individual needs and cutting down on time wasted in meetings.
Although it does seem to prove more difficult for short-staffed industries such as the health care or child care field in the United States, reported The Washington Post.
Is it a slippery slope down?
Skeptics to the change also argue that productivity with a four-day workweek would eventually go down — just like the five-day week — and cause more problems, per The Washington Post.
Claire Daniels, chief executive of Trio Media — one of the companies in the study — said that a big concern for her company was making sure employees didn’t slip back into old habits, but found success with a 47% increase in productivity, reported The Wall Street Journal.
Daniel’s company will continue the trial for another six months but doesn't see the schedule reverting to a five-days-a-week model.
Only time will tell if the rest of the world follows.