The results of the world's largest four-day working week trial are in — and most companies are sticking with the change.
From June to December last year, 61 companies in the UK paid their employees the same wage despite working fewer hours.
Revenue actually went up by 1.4 per cent, on average, with that figure being weighted by company size.
The companies saw a 57-per-cent drop in resignations.
Employees reported a decrease in their anxiety levels, fatigue and sleep issues and improvement in their mental and physical health.
The results of the study were so convincing that 92 per cent of the companies are continuing with a four-day week, with 18 companies going a step further to confirm the policy would be a permanent change.
What kind of companies participated?
It was run along with researchers from the University of Cambridge, Boston College — a research organisation focused on the future of work called Autonomy — and the 4-Day Week Global nonprofit community.
About 2,900 workers were involved across the 61 participating companies.
But they weren't all massive offices.
While professional industries such as advertising, administration and finance were among the top industries in the trial, it also included arts, construction and manufacturing companies.
And the size of these companies varied — here's a breakdown showing the range:
Number of employees |
Percentage of participating companies |
|---|---|
1-10 |
29 |
11-25 |
37 |
26-50 |
12 |
51-100 |
10 |
101+ |
12 |
Did everyone take Friday off?
No.
The trial just meant that people were still being paid the same but had a "meaningful reduction in work time".
And that meant different things for different companies.
Here are the four types of changes being trialled:
- Fifth-day stoppage: The company shuts down for one extra day per week
- Staggered: Staff take alternating days off
- Decentralised: Different departments operate on different work patterns — for some, this meant a four-day work week equivalent over five working days
- Annualised: Staff work a 32-hour average working week, calculated across the year — an example of this is a restaurant having longer opening hours in summer, with shorter hours in winter
- Conditional: Staff entitlement to the four-day week is tied to ongoing performance monitoring — an example might be staff needing to keep meeting key performance indicators to retain the four-day week.
About a third of the companies opted to take Friday off.
Some went with a "Monday or Friday" approach, while others went for a combination of full and half days.
How did they cut back on work time without reducing productivity?
Each participating company attempted to reform work processes to increase productivity.
Some of these changes included:
- Making meetings shorter and less frequent
- Reforming email etiquette
- Introducing a "heads down" or "focus" period where staff worked uninterrupted
- Adopting new software
- Encouraging "monotasking" — where workers eliminated time waters on switching between tasks.
Are companies already doing this?
Some are.
In the Achievers Workforce Institute's 2023 Engagement and Retention Report, 9 per cent of the human resources (HR) leaders surveyed had already done so.
That report included:
- Australia
- Canada
- UK
- US
- Singapore
And 42 per cent were considering it.
Could it happen in Australia?
Possibly.
There is currently a trial underway here, but the results aren't in yet.
"I'm confident we will see some progress, but achieving it as a standard condition will take a while," University of Queensland's professor of economics, John Quiggin, said.
Dr Quiggin said it was likely individual companies would be rolling out the policy in an ad hoc way before it becomes a standard working condition.
"We're seeing more progressive and forward-thinking companies going this way. Not all companies are like that," he said.
"Historically, what we've seen in the reduction of working hours is that they are achieved in a few leading sectors and then spread more generally through a combination of union action and changes in legislation.
"That's going to be more difficult in the current environment than it was last century.
"But, I think, we'll see a significant move in that direction.
"Then we'll see companies unwilling to move being pushed by some kind of combination of pressure from their own employees individually, union action and government measures that make a four-day week more of a standard."
However, of the five countries included in the Achievers Workforce Institute report, Australian companies were the least likely to be considering a four-day week.
Here's a country-by-country breakdown of the percentage of HR leaders considering a four-day week:
- Australia: 27 per cent
- UK: 39 per cent
- Canada: 41 per cent
- US: 47 per cent
- Singapore: 50 per cent
Would it only be office workers who benefit?
"The direct impact would be on people working a standard five-day week," Dr Quiggin said.
"That's not just office workers – the closest thing we have at the moment is the nine-day fortnight in parts of the building industry.
"It would include shift workers, assuming that they were employed on a full-time basis.
"Conditions would flow on to part-time workers under the award system."
