Make a Four-Day Work Week Work for You

There has been a lot of hype recently around the idea of a four day workweek. To separate the rumor from the reality a recent six month trial of a four-day workweek was conducted in Britain. This was the largest study to date of this issue, and a majority of the 61 companies that participated from June to December decided to stay with the shorter hours even after the trial was over. They also reported that most employees were less stressed and had better work-life balance. At the same time, revenue stayed the same or grew compared with the same six months from the prior year.

These sort of results seem to be pretty typical as reported in previous smaller studies, so it’s consistent enough that its worth a look. In the study, employers were asked to try a "meaningful" reduction in work hours. For most of them this meant four, eight hour days. Others varied their days so it averaged out to 32 hours a week. Employees reported being less stressed, more motivated and feeling "fresher" during the day. Absenteeism fell as did resignations. The extra day gave everybody a better work/life balance and they were happier for it. Having a "free" day, even though their pay was unchanged was a powerful motivator to give the job focused attention and reduce non-productive activities.

This led to the 100%-80%-100% rule. 100% of the pay, 80% of the hours and 100% of the productivity, a concept pioneered by 4 Day Week Global which strives to see businesses switch to this business model. Most companies are not used to working this way so a healthy skepticism is the usual response. And even though the most common four day version of work calls for Fridays as the day off; some businesses have difficulty finding a way to support their customers with this arrangement. So a common variation is to have a smaller percentage, say 10%, of the company work Tuesday through Friday to make sure phones still get answered, product gets shipped out of the plant or other time-critical actions can be taken.

It is implicit in this approach that customer systems must use an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and likely a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. This is because many companies find that if they have a Monday-to-Thursday Group, and a Tuesday-to-Friday group there will necessarily need to be hand-offs of information. This requires an ERP as a minimum and preferably a CRM as well. This ensures no gaps in communication.

The inherent skepticism of this different work cycle works both ways. To succeed, the company has to show that it is committed to the 100-80-100 plan, to the point of being a strong advocate, a cheerleader if you will, so that employees fully buy in. You might think that the employees would jump whole-heartedly into taking every Friday off and getting paid for it but depending on the company, there may be some initial distrust of Management’s ultimate goals. The sort of concerns that arise are whether this plan is masking an ultimate reduction in force, or a rationale for paying less. For this to work the management team needs to go all-in with their commitment. Given the potential upside, there’s no reason to hold back.

I can speak from personal experience that "Fridays off" is a strong retention tool. In addition, employees are more likely to schedule appointments on Friday so they don’t interrupt the middle of the workday; fewer people call in sick on Monday morning; there is more of a sense of urgency to get things done to maintain the productivity that justifies that extra day off; lower turnover; and workers feel more valued. If you think a four day workweek will work for you, or you just want to give it a try, you can get some help setting up a pilot program by checking out https://www.4dayweek.com/.