While remote and hybrid work models are nearly synonymous with the Future of Work, the four-day work week is gaining renewed attention as a characteristic of workplace flexibility. Certainly not a novel concept, the pandemic helped elevate four-day work week discussions as companies sought to bring employees back into the office. Advocates of the four-day work week are encouraging companies to join pilot programs to test the waters and determine its viability.

It is important to differentiate the four-day work week model from a compressed work week. Employees who work a compressed week are still working 40 or more hours over four days. A four-day work week means working 8 hours per day, 32 hours per week with the same pay as a 40-hour week.

However, various studies have shown that a four-day work week can produce higher productivity levels compared to employees working more days with longer hours. A four-day work week can also lead to lower stress levels as well as a happier and more loyal workforce. When employees know that their company values flexibility and work/life balance, there’s a greater commitment toward enterprise goals. It is this insight that led to a drastic change in work hours/days in the early 1900s.

Work Hours and Days Not Etched in Stone

Historically, until the 20th century, the work week spanned six days, averaging 80-to-100 hours per week, with the majority of labor working in factories or heavy manufacturing. In 1926, however, the Ford Motor Company transitioned to five days, 40 hours per week due to productivity insights of its workers. TIME highlighted Henry Ford’s philosophy on this in his company’s Ford News in October, “Just as the eight-hour day opened our way to prosperity in America, so the five-day workweek will open our way to still greater prosperity … It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either lost time or a class privilege.”

The Fair Labor Standards Act, passed in 1938 and amended in 1940 by Congress, made the 40-hour work week standard. Thus, the notion that the work week cannot be anything less than five days, 40 hours per week is not realistic given our current times. As evidenced by the Future of Work movement, today’s workplace landscape shows yet another tectonic shift in workforce productivity and engagement.

Now, more than ever, with remote work becoming a mainstream workforce model, it is relevant to further explore the four-day work week concept. And that’s exactly what hundreds of companies are undertaking across the world from Europe to North America and beyond.

Largest Four-Day Work Week Pilot Launched in the UK

The largest-ever four-day work week pilot is occurring in the United Kingdom from June to December 2022. Led by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with leading think tank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week UK Campaign, and researchers at Cambridge University, Boston College, and Oxford University, there are more than 70 organizations varying in size and sector participating in the six-month trial, including over 3,300 employees who are being paid one day off weekly during the six-month pilot.

According to Joe O’Connor, 4 Day Week Global CEO, “The organizations in the United Kingdom pilot are contributing real-time data and knowledge that are worth their weight in gold. Essentially, they are laying the foundation for the future of work by putting a four-day week into practice, across every size of business and nearly every sector, and telling us exactly what they are finding as they go,” he says.

“We are learning that for many it is a fairly smooth transition and for some there are some understandable hurdles — especially among those which have comparatively fixed or inflexible practices, systems, or cultures that date back well into the last century,” O’Connor adds.

With the pilot now at its halfway point, all participating organizations were sent a series of questions with multi-choice answers on a scale of 1 to 5. According to 4 Day Week Global, of those that responded (41 out of the 70 companies), here are some insights on the four-day work week at this juncture in the trial:

• 88% of respondents stated that the four-day week is working “well” for their business at this stage in the trial.
• 46% of respondents say their business productivity has “maintained around the same level,” while 34% report that it has “improved slightly,” and 15% say it has “improved significantly.”
• On how smooth the transition to a four-day week has been (with ‘5’ being “extremely smooth” and ‘1’ being “extremely challenging”), 29% of respondents selected ‘5’, 49% selected ‘4’ and 20% selected ‘3’.
• 86% of respondents stated that at this juncture in the trial, they would be “extremely likely” and or “likely” to consider retaining the four-day week policy after the trial period.

A Bright Future for Workplace Flexibility

The outlook is encouraging for four-day work week adoption for some of the companies involved in the pilot. The fact that 49% of the company respondents are seeing an improvement in business productivity is something to note as well. The Future of Work Exchange will follow up once the pilot concludes in December.

In the meantime, if your company is interested in a 4 Day Week Global pilot in the United States or Canada, information can be found here.

Ultimately, companies will need to determine how a four-day work week impacts their business and workforce model. Flexibility of any kind within today’s enterprises is critical to talent acquisition and retention. Companies that tested but decided against adopting a four-day work week have still realized the importance of flexibility and implemented other measures from no-meeting Thursdays to seasonal half-day Fridays. Determine what is meaningful from a stress and work/life balance perspective and use that as a starting point for a flexible workplace program.