The trial, which is being conducted in the UK through partnerships between 4 Day Week Global and researchers at Cambridge, Boston College and the University of Oxford, involves around 3,300 workers at 70 different companies. Participating businesses, while working only 80 percent of their usual hours, see no changes in compensation or productivity. The trial began in June and will continue until November. “Anecdotally, companies suggest that there has been an overwhelmingly positive experience with revenue and productivity levels, [that have] either maintained or, in some cases, improved,” Charlotte Lockhart, CEO and founder of 4 Day Week Global, a nonprofit working to advocate for the adoption of a four-day work week starting in 2018, told BNN Bloomberg in a video interview of August 8. Well-being indicators, including stress, burnout, sleep quality, work-life balance, and life satisfaction, all saw improvements. Lockhart added that, anecdotally, working fewer hours doesn’t seem to reduce productivity. In some cases, he said, productivity has advanced. “Everything we’re finding so far supports what we’ve always said and it’s interesting. But I think the important thing with this research is that we’ll have empirical data to feed into that,” Lockhart said.
WHAT IS THE TEST ABOUT?
Dr. Rupert Dunbar-Rees is the founder and CEO of Results Based Healthcare. In a video interview with BNN Bloomberg on Aug. 17, he said the company was looking for ways to improve productivity before participating in the four-day workweek trial. “The four-day week is really the culmination of this exercise of trying to improve our productivity and really think about what we do and how we do it,” Dunbar-Rees said. The UK-based company has 11 full-time employees participating in the trial and working in a hybrid environment. Although implementing the shortened week posed challenges, Dunbar-Rees said the process was “pretty smooth”. Obstacles included navigating HR policies and determining what to do with employees already working four-day weeks. Being nimble, Dunbar-Rees said, was an important element. “You always expect failure, but then you have to plan for failure,” he said, comparing the adaptation to the company’s work producing software for the National Health Service. Despite the challenges, Dunbar-Rees said workers reaped the benefits of the reduced working hours, feeling the time off provided them with a “proper three-day reset”. “On the positive side, definitely everyone on the team … has been able to do a lot of things that they just never would have done and come back much more refreshed on Monday,” Dunbar-Rees said. “So people get eye exams and go to the dentist and do endless amounts of living that otherwise wouldn’t happen,” he said. “Half the solution to a sustainable four-day week was looking to improve efficiency and productivity,” he said. “I don’t want to prejudge the outcome of the pilot, but I’d be surprised if we got to the end and said, ‘okay, let’s go back to the way we used to work,’” he said.
