#76 What is the four-day workweek?

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Your faithful writer,
Dr. Daniel Smith

How long should the workweek be?

During the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, 12-hour working days and six-day weeks were common.

Labor unions used strikes and industrial action to fight for five-day workweeks during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt made five-day workweeks the standard across the U.S. when he signed the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

Nearly a century later, we are all used to the idea of a five-day workweek.

But things are starting to change, and a growing number of people argue that a four-day workweek would make workers less stressed and more productive.

The idea of a four-day workweek is simple: we don’t need to work five days a week anymore to be productive in a high-tech digital economy.

Critics of the four-day workweek argue that it will make workers and businesses less productive by cutting the number of working hours in a week by 20%.

In fact, the 40-hour workweek can make us less productive by making it harder to get relax and get quality sleep.

In one experiment with a four-day workweek, 40% of workers reported a reduction in sleep difficulties while 46% reported a reduction in fatigue after transitioning from a five-day to a four-day workweek.

Does the four-day workweek work?

Since the idea was popularized in recent years, countries, cities, and companies around the world have experimented with a four-day workweek.

The biggest four-day workweek trial yet took place in the United Kingdom in the second half of 2022. In that trial, 61 companies experimented with a four-day workweek for 6 months.

When the trial ended, a majority of the companies reported that revenue had largely stayed the same (or even grew) despite the reduction in overall working hours.

Of the ~2,900 workers who participated in the trial:

• 71% reported that they felt less burned out

• 39% said that they were less stressed

• 48% said that they were more satisfied with their job than they were before the trial

• 60% of the workers said that it was easier to balance work and personal life responsibilities

And best of all? 73% of the workers involved said they were more satisfied with their lives than they were before the trial.

And more than a year after the trial ended, 54 of the 61 British companies that participated in the trial are still using the four-day workweek.

The manager of a British restaurant that implemented — and kept — the four-day workweek had this to say about the experiment:

Similar trials have taken place in Germany, the Dominican Republic, and South Africa, with each yielding positive results.

After a similar trial was conducted in the Spanish city of Valencia, researchers found that the four-day workweek also led to lower CO2 emissions and improved air quality in the city due to the elimination of the Friday commute from workers' schedules.

So, is the world going to move toward a four-day workweek? A recent KPMG survey of American CEOs found that 30% of large U.S. companies are considering four-day or four-and-a-half-day workweeks, so the idea seems to be gaining traction.

By the way: today’s Art of the Day depicts what life could be like with a four-day workweek. 🕺💃

ART OF THE DAY

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Yours,
Dan