A year after launching a pilot program testing a four-day workweek at companies in the U.S. and Canada, employees’ average hours continued to fall as companies found new ways to save time.
New research from 4 Day Week Global, a nonprofit organization that coordinated the study, tracked the health, well-being and business outcomes of 41 firms as they adopted shorter hours last year. The report found that a year after launching the trials, conducted over six months, employees’ average workweek dropped to less than 33 hours from 38 hours, a big step closer to the target of the 32 hours that make up a workweek consisting of four eight-hour days.
Self-reported physical and mental health scores held steady over the full year, while work-life balance continued to improve. At the same time, though, burnout rates ticked up and workers’ job satisfaction dropped, though both remain better than before. “This suggests the positive effects a four-day week has on life satisfaction may be more deeply embedded in individuals’ overall well-being than in job satisfaction alone,” lead researcher Juliet Schor, a professor at Boston College, wrote in the report.
The abbreviated schedule boosted companies’ ability to hire and retain staff, with almost a third of employees who said they were seriously considering leaving now saying they’re less likely to do so. When asked how much they’d have to get paid to go back to five days, almost half said they’d need significant raises to consider it while about one in 10 said no amount of money would be enough. None of the companies expressed a desire to return to the conventional Monday through Friday schedule.