After the biggest test of the four-day workweek in history, more than 90% of the participating companies said they will keep the shortened workweek following the trial.
In total, 61 employers and nearly 3,000 workers took part in the trial, which was organized by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with researchers from Boston College and the University of Cambridge. The six-month pilot is being billed as a major win for advocates of the idea, which has gained prominence as society reassesses the most productive balance between work and life following the pandemic.
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Of the 61 participating companies, a whopping 56 said that they will continue to test four-day workweeks after the trial has concluded, and 18 said they will be making the changes permanent. That is because the change showed some major benefits not only for workers but also for employers, who are typically skeptical about the notion of shorter workweeks.
“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.
While some advocates of a four-day workweek assert that to make up for the lost day, employees should work 10 hours on the other four, this study simply nixed one day of the week, meaning that the employees spent less time working on average. Still, productivity was largely unchanged, and in some cases, improved.
Employers were asked to rate worker productivity on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being very negative and 10 being very positive. The average rating from the experiment was 7.5. Midway through the trial, nearly half of the employers reported little to no changes in productivity, 34% reported a slight improvement, and 15% said the four-day workweek had led to a significant improvement in productivity.
Workers also quickly came to embrace the change. A relatively hefty 15% of the participating employees said they liked their new schedules so much that “no amount of money” would convince them to return to a five-day workweek. The study found that resignations declined during the period of the study by 57%, suggesting a retention benefit for employers.
After the trial, 39% of employees reported being less stressed out, and 71% reported reduced levels of burnout. Meanwhile, anxiety and sleep issues decreased during the trial, while psychical and mental health improved, according to the participants.
The companies that participated in the trial varied widely by industry, but saw their overall revenue remain broadly the same over the period despite fewer working hours (increasing 1.4%). When compared to a similar period from prior years, companies reported an average revenue increase of 35% during the pilot.
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Michelle is a 49-year-old media executive who negotiated a four-day workweek when she applied for her current job. She told the Washington Post that working four days a week was worth it, even though, as part of her contract, she is earning 20% less than what she would be had she agreed to work five days per week.
“It feels like I can breathe,” she said. “It feels like I’m not constantly behind with my family life and feeling guilty and like squashing all of the jobs and errands and everything into two days.”