UK companies that tested 4-day workweek wish to continue; read details

A majority of firms in the United Kingdom who took part in a four-day workweek experiment are not willing to switch back to their normal work schedules now. As per a Wall Street Journal report, a large number of firms who participated in the six-month long experiment say that they don’t want to stop practicing four-day workweeks after witnessing a sharp decline in worker turnover and absenteeism while maintaining productivity. Over 90 percent of the companies stated that they are going to continue to test the shorter week, while 18 percent planned to follow this permanently, as per a new report from the study’s organisers, quoted by Wall Street Journal. This is among the largest trials of a four-day workweek till now. In this trial, 61 British businesses, ranging from banks to fast-food restaurants to marketing agencies, provided almost 2,900 employees one paid day off a week. This study was conducted to find out if workers could get just as much done while working less. Several employers and policy makers are trying to find out whether a shorter workweek can improve the well-being and loyalty of employees. Juliet Schor, an economist and sociologist at Boston College, told WSJ, “At the beginning, this was about pandemic burnout for a lot of employers. Now it’s more of a retention and recruitment issue for many of them.” Her team helped her in holding the study alongside non-profit advocacy group, 4 Day Week Global, think tank Autonomy in UK, and researchers at Cambridge University.   The United Kingdom is not the only one experimenting with a four-day workweek. According to a study conducted in Iceland involving over 2,500 workers across industries, the majority of the employees maintained or improved their productivity and reported less stress. However, most of the firms that have tried the four-day workweek experiment are small employers. This concept has not been embraced by many larger corporations. In some companies experimenting with four-day workweeks, some workers reportedly struggled to get everything done in time.   Furthermore, companies in the United States and Canada ended a smaller pilot of a four-day week led by the UK study organisers. Consumer-goods company Unilever recently put the concept into test in its offices in New Zealand. The government of Spain is also planning to pay businesses for experimenting with a four-day workweek.