Pointers at Glance
- The study shows that a four-day workweek provides wide support for a 32-hour week.
- The experiment is being continued by the 4 Day Week Global coalition in collaboration with researchers at Cambridge University, Boston College, and the University of Oxford.
The largest multinational four-day workweek experiment in the UK has reached the midway point. Feedback from participating organizations indicates that most hope to retain a 32-hour workweek after their pilot ends.
The experiment is being continued by the 4 Day Week Global coalition in collaboration with researchers at Cambridge University, Boston College, and the University of Oxford. With a few exceptions, most companies participating in the project are smaller firms.
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, program director for the 4-day workweek, said through email that the pandemic made all of us reevaluate the place of work in our lives. It showed that we could come up with new ways of working faster than we ever thought possible.
Many people don’t want to go back to office life Monday through Friday. For some companies, a four-day workweek offers features that make it more attractive than flexible or fully remote work. Pang said the shorter workweek has proved popular with CEOs and employees.
Claire Daniels, CEO at Trio Media, one of the 70 companies participating in the pilot project, said that the four-day week trial has been extremely successful for us. Productivity has remained high, with an increase in wellness for the team and our business performing 44% better financially.
The study involves 3,300 workers in the UK and another 2,000 in about a half dozen countries. Compensation for employees remains the same as when they worked five days. They are expected to complete their work in four days.
According to Pang, the changes companies have made are shorter meetings, monotasking rather than multitasking, better communications, and sharing responsibility for clients across a week.
rather than multitasking, better communications, and sharing responsibility for clients across a week.
