More than 3,300 UK workers are participating in the largest pilot of a four-day workweek. The trial will last six months as researchers track how people react to getting an extra day off.
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More than 3,300 UK workers are participating in the largest pilot of a four-day workweek. The trial will last six months as researchers track how people react to getting an extra day off.
Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images
Over the next six months, thousands of people across the UK will work 32 hours a week in Biggest pilot of the four-day work week the world has seen.
The trial involved more than 3,300 people at 70 companies in industries ranging from healthcare to local fish and chip shops. It was made possible by 4 Day Week Global, the 4 Day Week Campaign, UK-based Autonomous Consulting, and researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College.
Thought it was simple now. Workers earn as much as they would in a 40-hour workweek, but they only work 80% of the time. In exchange for fewer hours, workers commit to maintaining the productivity they can achieve in a 5-day workweek.
Calls for a 32-hour workweek have increased, especially as more people around the world are facing pandemic burnout.
“As we emerge from the pandemic, more and more companies are realizing that the new frontier for competition is quality of life, and that output-focused work hours are the means to their advantage. competition,” Joe O’Connor, CEO of 4 Day Week Global, said in a statement.
“The impact of the ‘big resignation’ is proving that workers from a variety of industries can produce better results while working shorter and smarter,” he said.
The results of a 32-hour workweek are what Will Stronge, research director at Autonomy, focuses on. Stronge, also co-author of Overtime: Why we need a shorter workweek, tell NPR’s Life Toolkit podcast last year that in some ways the five-day workweek is obsolete and has led to what he calls overtime creeping into our personal lives.
“Our work culture has changed in favor of going above and beyond – work overtime for better career prospects or simply because your boss asks,” he says. friend”. “Now, during a pandemic, you’re in the living room with your laptop. So it’s hard to get rid of the horrible thing that has infiltrated our working lives.”
If people were given an extra day off, Stronge says many people say they would take care of personal affairs or spend more time with family and friends.
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If people were given an extra day off, Stronge says many people say they would take care of personal affairs or spend more time with family and friends.
Tolga Akmen / AFP via Getty Images
Stronge has argued that a shorter workweek is better for people’s mental health and can even increase productivity.
“For many organizations, what you lose in time, you gain more productivity at work,” he said. “We can’t stay focused all the time, especially if you’re overworked and exhausted. And so the reduction in the workweek has benefited workers’ health and productivity, which means they come to work refreshed. They come to work love their job a little more and want to get it done so they have a good weekend, etc.”
Researchers will measure any change in productivity
As the UK’s major pilot process gets underway, productivity is one of the areas the researchers will focus on.
“We’ll analyze how employees respond to an extra day off, in terms of stress and burnout, work and life satisfaction, health, sleep, energy use, travel and many other aspects of life,” said Juliet Schor, professor of sociology. at Boston College, said in a statement.
Although it is at least six months away from final results from the UK pilot, a similar trial by Microsoft Japan in 2019 resulted in a 40% increase in productivity. Earlier, a New Zealand company testing a 4-day week announced that employee productivity increased by 20% in 2018.
Trials in Iceland with about 2,500 workers between 2015 and 2019 show that productivity remains the same or improves in most cases.
And for the weekends that everyone picks up, Stronge said many people say they’ll use the extra day off to complete personal tasks or spend more time with their friends and family.
“It really makes a huge difference,” says Stronge. “And so I think it should – it’s going to be a bit of a game changer.”
