Results from 4-day workweek trial show ‘shorter hours, happier employees’:
An “overwhelming majority” of the 61 companies that took part in the recent four-day work week pilot say they will continue the experiment and stick with “shorter hours.”
Virtually all of the companies that participated are continuing with shortened hours:
Of the 61 companies that took part, 56 “report that they are continuing with the four-day week immediately following the pilot" and 18 companies say the “policy is permanent.”
“We feel really encouraged by the results, which showed the many ways companies were turning the four-day week from a dream into a realistic policy, with multiple benefits."
Workers report feeling less burned out, less stressed:
Participating companies say employees were “less stressed” and had “better work-life balance.”
Workers reported being 71% less burned out, 39% less stressed and 48% more satisfied with their job than before the trial.
60% of workers said it was “easier to balance work and responsibilities at home.” 73% of workers reported "increased satisfaction with their lives.”
“Everyone is focused, everyone knows what they’re doing, everyone is refreshed. What it means is that they are coming into work with a better frame of mind and passing that on to obviously the clients and the public that are coming here for their meals. They’re getting a greater service because the team are more engaged.”
Companies reported seeing no drop in revenue:
Companies reported that “revenue largely stayed the same during the trial period” and some “grew compared with the same six months a year earlier.”
For 23 of the participating companies that had sufficient data, revenue grew 1.4% on average over the course of the six-month trial.
Looking at year-over-year change across 24 companies with sufficient data, revenue climbed more than 34% on average compared to the same six-month period a year earlier.
Many companies saw improvement in retention, lower absenteeism, and boosts to efficiency and productivity:
For companies in the trial, the likelihood of employees quitting was down 57% compared with the prior year.
The number of workers calling out sick was down 65% from the same time a year ago, according to the findings.
An environmental consulting firm that was part of the trial said that the firm invested in technology and “stopped doing the 'day-to-day rubbish' of certain administrative tasks in order to squeeze the required weekly workload into four days instead of five.”
Read more via Autonomy.com, Associated Press, NPR
“If you give people an incentive to do something — like a really cool incentive, and it's a money-can't-buy incentive, giving them a whole day a week for the same pay to do what they want to do — that really focuses the mind.”