New trial reveals that working four days a week improves employee well-being

In the United Kingdom 61 organisations committed to a 2037 reduction in working hours for all employees during a sixmonth period commencing in June 2022Furthermore the vast majority of enterprises maintained their fulltime productivity targets Data from the worlds largest fourday working week trial show considerably lower rates of stress and illness in the workforce with 7137 of employees selfreporting lower levels of burnout and 3937 indicating they were less anxiousThere was a 65 per cent reduction in sick days and a 57 per cent fall in the number of staff leaving participating companies compared to the same period the previous year Company revenue barely changed during the trial period even increasing marginally by 14 per cent on average In a report of the findings presented to UK lawmakers some 92 per cent of companies that took part in the UK pilot programme 56 out of 61 say they intend to continue with the fourday working week with 18 companies confirming the change as permanentResearch for the UK trials was conducted by a team of social scientists from the University of Cambridge working with academics from Boston College in the US and the think tank Autonomy The trial was organised by 4 Day Week Global in conjunction with the UKs 4 Day Week Campaign Companies from across the UK took part with around 2900 employees dropping a day of work Organisations involved in the trial ranged from online retailers and financial service providers to animation studios and a local fishandchip shopOther industries represented include consultancy housing IT skincare recruitment hospitality marketing and healthcare Researchers surveyed employees throughout the trial to gauge the effects of having an extra day of free time Selfreported levels of anxiety and fatigue decreased across workforces while mental and physical health improvedMany survey respondents said they found it easier to balance work with both family and social commitments 60 per cent of employees found an increased ability to combine paid work with care responsibilities and 62 per cent reported it easier to combine work with social lifeBefore the trial many questioned whether we would see an increase in productivity to offset the reduction in working time but this is exactly what we found said sociologist Prof Brendan Burchell who led the University of Cambridge side of the researchMany employees were very keen to find efficiency gains themselves Long meetings with too many people were cut short or ditched completely Workers were much less inclined to kill time and actively sought out technologies that improved their productivity he said Dr David Frayne a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge said We feel really encouraged by the results which showed the many ways companies were turning the fourday week from a dream into realistic policy with multiple benefitsJoe Ryle director of the 4 Day Week Campaign calls the results a major breakthrough moment for the idea of shorter working weeks Across a wide variety of different sectors of the economy these incredible results show that the fourday week actually works he saidIn addition to the survey work designed in collaboration with colleagues including Prof Juliet Schor from Boston College the Cambridge team conducted a large number of extensive interviews with employees and company CEOs before during and after the sixmonth trial Other pilots run by 4 Day Week Global in the US and Ireland with research conducted by many of the same academics have already reported their findings However the UK trial is not only the largest to date but also the first to include indepth interview researchThe method of this pilot allowed our researchers to go beyond surveys and look in detail at how the companies were making it work on the ground said Frayne from Cambridges Department of Sociology In terms of motivations several senior managers told researchers they saw the fourday week as a rational response to the pandemic and believed it would give them an edge when it came to attracting talent in the postCovid job marketSome saw it as an appealing alternative to unlimited home working which they felt risked company culture Others had seen staff suffer through health problems and bereavement during the pandemic and felt an increased moral responsibility towards employeesI hated the pandemic but its made us see each other much more in the round and its made us all realise the importance of having a healthy head and that family matters said the CEO of a nonprofit organisation that took part in the trial However many said shorter hours were being discussed long before Covid as a response to demanding or emotionally draining workThe CEO of a video game studio pointed to highprofile examples of crunch and burnout in their industry as a reason for involvement in the trial Perhaps surprisingly however no organisation interviewed was taking part in the trials simply because technology had reduced their need for human labourSome companies stopped work completely for a threeday weekend while others staggered a reduced workforce over a week One restaurant calculated their 32hour week over an entire year to have long opening times in the summer but much shorter in winter A few companies in the trial attached strings to the reduced hours including fewer holiday days an agreement that staff could be called in at short notice or a conditional fourday week one that only continued while performance targets were metInterviews documented how companies reduced working hours without compromising on targets Common methods included shorter meetings with clearer agendas introduction of interruptionfree focus periods reforming email etiquette to reduce long chains and inbox churn new analyses of production processes endofday task lists for effective handovers or nextday head startsWhen employees were asked how they used the additional time off by far the most popular response was life admin tasks such as shopping and household chores Many explained how this allowed them a proper break for leisure activities on Saturday and Sunday It was common for employees to describe a significant reduction in stress said researcher and Cambridge PhD candidate Niamh Bridson Hubbard adding Many described being able to switch off or breathe more easily at home One person told us how their Sunday dread had disappearedFor some parents of young children a midweek day off meant savings on childcare expenses For those with older children it meant some welcome me time All reported doing more of the activities they already enjoy from sports to cooking music making to volunteering Some developed new interests while others used the time to get professional qualificationsWhen you realise that day has allowed you to be relaxed and rested and ready to absolutely go for it on those other four days you start to realise that to go back to working on a Friday would feel really wrong stupid actually said the CEO of a consultancy organisation involved in the trial When it came to working culture employees were generally positive feeling more valued by their employer and describing a shared sense of purpose arising from efforts to make the fourday week a successHowever several staff at one large company had concerns about intensifying workloads while some at creative companies expressed disquiet over reduced worktime conviviality due to focus time and argued that unstructured chat often generates new ideas By the end of the sixmonth trial many of the managers said they could not imagine returning to a fiveday weekAlmost everyone we interviewed described being overwhelmed with questions from other organisations in their industry that are interested in following suit said Burchell When we ask employers a lot of them are convinced the fourday week is going to happen It has been uplifting for me personally just talking to so many upbeat people over the last six months A fourday week means a better working life and family life for so many peopleRead More Why we need to address the downside of the muchhyped hustle culture of MumbaiThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever