U.K. Firms Want 4-Day Workweeks to Continue

"A large majority of U.K. companies participating in a test of a four-day workweek said they would stick with it after logging sharp drops in worker turnover and absenteeism while largely maintaining productivity during the six-month study.

In one of the largest trials of a four-day week to date, 61 British businesses ranging from banks to fast-food restaurants to marketing agencies gave their 2,900 workers a paid day off a week to see whether they could get just as much done while working less, but more effectively.

More than 90% said they would continue testing the shorter week, while 18 planned to make it permanent, according to a report from the study's organizers.

The idea of working less than the conventional 40 hours over five days a week has been discussed for decades. That concept has gained new momentum recently as employers and employees seek new and better ways to work. The Covid-19 era ushered in broader acceptance of remote and hybrid work arrangements. Now, some employers, as well as policy makers, are exploring whether a shorter workweek can improve employee well-being and loyalty.

"At the beginning, this was about pandemic burnout for a lot of employers. Now it's more of a retention and recruitment issue for many of them," said Juliet Schor, an economist and sociologist at Boston College, whose team helped conduct the study with the nonprofit group 4 Day Week Global, U.K.-based think tank Autonomy and researchers at Cambridge University.

Companies in the U.S. and Canada recently concluded a smaller pilot of a four-day week led by the U.K. study organizers, and similar trials are in the works in Australia, Brazil and elsewhere. Consumer-goods company Unilever recently tested the concept in its New Zealand offices, while Spain's government plans to pay companies to experiment with a four-day week. In a four-year study in Iceland involving more than 2,500 employees across industries, researchers found most workers maintained or improved their productivity and reported reduced stress.

Widespread adoption faces a number of obstacles. Most companies that have experimented with a four-day week are small employers. Many larger companies haven't embraced the concept. And at some companies trying four-day weeks, some workers have reported struggling to get everything done in that time.

On a scale of 0 (very negative) to 10 (very positive), employers on average scored their productivity and performance over the six months at 7.5.

A survey conducted halfway through the trial found 46% of companies said their business productivity had remained about the same, while 34% reported a slight improvement, and 15% a significant improvement." [1]

1. U.K. Firms Want 4-Day Workweeks to Continue
Fuhrmans, Vanessa.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 21 Feb 2023: B.1.