At first sight, the experiment had everything to be celebrated by the employees and execrated by the C-Level: working only four days a week – and without a reduction in wages.
The experiment, carried out by a group of British companies, lasted six months, between June and November 2022. The results, which have just been published, were so positive that the vast majority of participants decided to keep the four-day week.
Of the 61 companies and organizations that were part of the experience, 56 said they would continue with the reduced journey for some more time. Among these, 18 decided to institute the scheme definitively.
Most workers reported improvement in mental health and willingness to work. Resignations dropped, while the bottom line of companies was virtually unchanged – and a large number of them saw improvements in productivity.
In all, 2,900 people took part in this pilot program, considered the largest of its kind carried out to date.
The coordination of the project was an initiative of 4-Day Week Global, which has been working, on a global scale, so that the traditional 40 hours a week are reduced to 32 hours. (In Brazil, at least on paper, working hours must be a maximum of 8 hours a day and 44 hours a week.)
“In the beginning, companies saw this program as something to deal with cases of burnout due to the pandemic. Now, for many of them it will be a way of retaining employees and attracting new collaborators,” he told The Wall Street Journal economist and sociologist Juliet Schor of Boston College.
Among the participating companies are financial institutions, restaurant chains, marketing agencies, consultancies, digital content developers and a brewery. Implementation and evaluation were supported by the Autonomy Research Institute in collaboration with scholars from Boston College and the University of Cambridge.
Employers had the flexibility to negotiate with employees how to implement the reduction in working hours, which might be through an additional day off per week or the reduction of hours or days worked during the trial period – the important thing was to limit the average load on the stop over 32 hours a week.
The results give strength to the arguments of advocates of reducing working hours as a means of improving people’s quality of life, and possibly even raising productivity.
In the British experiment, a survey carried out during the test period identified that 46% of the companies involved reported that productivity had not been affected, 34% said there had been a slight improvement and 15% reported having noticed a significant improvement.
Among workers, 39% said they were less stressed, half of them noticed an improvement in mental health, and 37% reported improvement in physical health. People saw the fact that they had more time to take care of their children and family as a positive thing.
“As technology advances and productivity increases, it is time to move to the four-day week with no reduction in wages,” tweeted Senator Bernie Sanders, known for his pro-worker positions, commenting on the results of the British study. “Workers should benefit from technology, not just corporate CEOs.”
But the experiment just completed involved relatively small companies, and, as the WSJlarge groups have already considered adopting a reduction in working hours, but they ran into obstacles to move forward – among other reasons, workers were unable to complete their tasks on time.
Similar studies have started to be carried out in other countries, including Brazil, and the idea tends to gain strength around the world. There are many people willing to work less, even if, in some situations, it means sacrificing promotions and having a lower salary.
In Brazil, however, low productivity would be quite a challenge to reduce the number of hours worked without causing an economic loss. A few companies, most of them in technology, operate on a four-day-a-week schedule. To maintain the results, they need to organize themselves and not lose focus on their workdays.
Giuliano Guandalini
