The Impact of Working a 4-Day Week

Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show that the average annual hours worked by employed people in 2020 were

• 25.6 per week in Germany
• 34 per week for Americans
• 32 per week for Canadians
• 26 per week in the UK
• 30 hours per week for Spaniards and
• 31 hours per week for the Japanese.

These numbers show that the average American already work equivalent to a four-day workweek. However, US data includes high-school and college-age workers who work less than 40 hours per week.

Workers' quality of life can improve with a four-day workweek. People will have more time for

• Quality time with family, friends, and pets
• Caregiving
• Healthcare appointments
• Personal development
• Education
• Travel
• Hobbies
• Home maintenance
• Household management

For employers, benefits of a four-day workweek include:

• Increased sales
• Reduced employee burnout and improved employee retention
• Larger applicant pool for open positions

• Some organisations use a four-day week to save costs by not maintaining pay and benefits.
• A 32-hour work week may lead to a lack of work ethic.
• A four-day week of 10-hour days can be incompatible with wage regulations or be too much for employees.
• It may not be possible to increase productivity enough in service or logistics jobs to achieve the same results in fewer hours. There's a limit to how many delivery locations a UPS driver can make in a day.

• Iceland ran a pilot four-day workweek program from 2015 to 2019. The results published in 2021 showed that workers were less burnt out while having more time for family.
• Several trials are done on the four-day workweek in Spain.
• Unilever in New Zealand ran a year-long four-day workweek program that ended in 2021.
• The UK is launching a four-day workweek trial from June to December 2022.
• US-based Kickstarter will also do a four-day workweek trial in 2022.
• The social media software company Buffer implemented a four-day workweek in 2020.

• Prioritize and reevaluate tasks
• Minimize interruptions and distractions
• Increase automation
• Focus on human creativity
• Reduce work-based social events
• Reduce and shorten meetings
• Spend less time on email and messaging apps
• Define clear goals that are achievable within a shorter workweek
• Measure outcomes, not hours
• Implement asynchronous work
• Maintain employee pay
• Trust workers
• Request regular employee feedback
• Learn from experimentation and mistakes