4-day work week shown to be a success

[Silver]

Earlier this year, Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand company that manages trust, wills and estates, invited its two hundred and forty employees to join an eight-week experiment during which they would work four days a week and enjoy an extra leisure day, although getting the same amount of money.

The trial, led by the company’s CEO and co-founder Andrew Barnes, sought to challenge the entire company in joining a discussion about the future of work and how increased flexibility and free time may impact employees’ productivity and company outcomes.

To ensure robustness of the process, they hired two academic researchers to prepare, conduct and analyse the results of the research.

Some of the key results shared by the research are:

Leaders reported that job performance remained at the same level
Staff stress levels were lowered from 45% to 38%
Work-life balance improved significantly, from 54% to 78%
Team engagement levels increased from an interval of 64%-68% to 82%-88%

https://www.infoq.com/news/2018/08/four-day-work-week

[CapnAwesome]

I've been working three day work week this summer. It's the tits. I also sometimes work as a bike delivery person, and literally work whatever hours I feel like. I could go out and do a couple of deliveries right now.

I think in the future more work will be like that and the whole concept of a work week will be obsolete.

[AFTT47]

I'm surprised at that result.

I work a 4 x 10 hours work week - and I find it hard. I'm 59 years-old and most of my co-workers are of a similar age. Most of us struggle with our long, work day. But we all love it. We positively LOVE our 4-day work week, giving us 3-days off every week. We wouldn't want it any other way.

I feel like I'm less productive with this schedule and most of my co-workers feel the same. But we would never tell our boss! We LOVE our schedule.

Maybe our job-satisfaction makes up for it. Few of us would be willing to work for better pay for another employer if we had a 5 x 8-hour week. That extra day off for us is gold and I think we would kill to keep it.

[purplepurpose]

It's only for rich countries.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Boss Lady works the 4X10 and gets the occasional four day weekend when there's a Monday holiday. She's done this for five years now and is quite used to it.

[Angrboda]

It's not clear from your post, does the article say that productivity and output remained the same? I think that's the main worry about four day work weeks, that employers will get less out of their workers for the same amount of money. I think it's a no-brainer that the employees would benefit in numerous ways.

[Bob Kelso]

I currently work a 3 1/2 work week, which is three 12 hour shifts with a six hour shift, it’s awesome. Sure I don’t get to do anything but work part of the week but having so many days off is pretty great.

More time for the kiddos and vidya games.

[Angrboda]

[brewer]

If your were a wage employee the last place I worked they gave you a choice if you were in a specific job. Either 5 eights, 4 tens or 3 twelves.

Us salaried  fucks usually put in around 50 to 55hrs/week, but the difference in pay/perks was definitely worth it.

[Crossless2.0]

I've had jobs that involved four ten-hour shifts per week and loved it.

These days, I work twelve on and two off, and I'm technically on-call 24 hours during my duty days.

I do miss three-day weekends, but I get paid more now than I have in the past.

Trade-offs.