For six months, 61 British companies with 2,900 employees turned their work organization upside down to experiment with the four-day week.
The test period has ended, but the trial will have been conclusive, since the majority of companies have decided to continue the experiment.
In detail, 56 companies have chosen to extend this experiment, of which 18 have made this change permanent.
Four-day week with continued pay
Participating companies came from different sectors. If they all adopted the four-day week for six months, at the start, they opted for different models.
Some have chosen to extend the weekend to Friday. Others have implemented a “staggered”, “decentralised”, “annualized” or “conditional” week. But regardless of the model chosen, employees kept their salaries.
The trial ran from June to December 2022. It took two months of preparation, workshops, coaching, mentoring and peer support.
Reduced stress and departures
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Following the experiment, the study reveals that 39% of employees are less stressed, and that 71% have reduced their level of burnout.
54% of respondents believe it is easier to reconcile work and household chores, 60% find it easier to combine work and family responsibilities, and 62% say they find a better balance between professional and social life.
Companies reported a 57% drop in departures during the trial period.
A positive experience
This experiment was conducted by the 4 Day Week Campaign, an initiative supported by the think tank Autonomy and researchers from Boston College and the universities of Cambridge and Oxford.
“This is a major breakthrough for the movement for a four-day work week,” said Joe Ryle, director of the 4 Day Week Campaign. “Across a wide variety of different sectors of the economy, these incredible results show that the four-day no-loss week really works. »
The authors of the report specify that the organizations that took part in the experiment did so on a voluntary basis. So they probably have strategies in place to make the four-day week work in their company. Nevertheless, these results plead in favor of a work organization favoring a shorter week.
“We don’t know exactly what happened in terms of productivity, but we do know that in terms of a whole host of other metrics, whether it’s revenue, attrition, ‘self-assessment of productivity, employee well-being or costs, we got very good results,’ notes Juliet Schor, from Boston College, according to remarks reported by the BBC.
Source: ZDNet.com