A four-day work week seems to work out better
Experiments with the four-day work week, in which employees do the same work as they would otherwise do in a five-day work week, have turned out surprisingly well. says research. Will the four-day working week be the future?
Tried a four-day work week for the same salary
Last summer, the world’s largest trial of the four-day work week began in Britain. More than 3,300 people who worked at different types of companies worked 80% of their usual working hours for 100% of their salary. Employees had to maintain the same level of productivity they had while working five days a week and record the impact on mind and body during the study.
Same positive result time after time
Halfway through the trial, feedback from employers and employees was overwhelmingly positive. Employees feel more productive and less stressed and some companies even saw their financial results improve. But this was not the only experiment with the four-day work week. Elsewhere in the Anglosphere: In the US, Australia, Ireland, UK, New Zealand and Canada with a smaller trial involving 903 workers, the same positive results emerged. An earlier trial in Iceland also had a similar result.
Four-day working week especially suitable for highly skilled professions
However, this does not apply to all professions. The test was only conducted with highly educated people, with at least a higher vocational education diploma. In highly skilled work, concentration and mental effort are most important. Then four days of concentrated work is certainly just as productive as five days, with a blue Monday or the lame Friday.
But this is less true for production work or cleaning work, for example. But low-skilled work is precisely the work that is often the most stressful and where employees would enjoy the most with a little more free time.
Is the four-day work week the solution to work stress? In a country whose working population is overworked, that certainly seems to be the case. Research should also be done into the effects of the four-day working week on the lower educated. The research was conducted by the non-profit collaboration platform 4 Day Week Global.
