Four-day weeks are good for employee health, study suggests

A year after launching a pilot program testing a four-day work week at companies in the U.S. and Canada, employees’ average hours continued to fall as companies found new ways to save time.

New research from 4 Day Week Global, a not-for-profit organization that coordinated the study, tracked the health, well-being and business outcomes of 41 firms as they adopted shorter hours last year. The report found that a year after launching the trials, conducted over six months, employees’ average workweek dropped to less than 33 hours from 38 hours, a big step closer to the target of the 32 hours that make up a workweek consisting of four eight-hour days.

The researchers attribute the further cutback in hours to firms figuring out more ways to be efficient, rather than relying on ratcheting up work intensity. Time savings came from scheduling fewer meetings, streamlining communication and building in more focus time to reduce distractions.

The study suggests that the benefits from shifting to a four-day week might last and grow stronger over time, rather than dissipating.

“A concern we frequently hear is there’s no way the results from our six-month trials can be maintained, as the novelty eventually must wear off, but here we are a year later with benefits only continuing to grow,” Dale Whelehan, chief executive officer of 4 Day Week Global said in the report. “This is very promising for the sustainability of this model.”

Self-reported physical and mental health scores held steady over the full year, while work-life balance continued to improve. At the same time, though, burnout rates ticked up and workers’ job satisfaction dropped, though both remain better than before. “This suggests the positive effects a four-day week has on life satisfaction may be more deeply embedded in individuals’ overall well-being than in job satisfaction alone,” lead researcher Juliet Schor, a professor at Boston College, wrote in the report.

The abbreviated schedule boosted companies’ ability to hire and retain staff, with almost a third of employees who said they were seriously considering leaving now saying they’re less likely to do so. When asked how much they’d have to get paid to go back to five days, almost half said they’d need significant raises to consider it while about one in 10 said no amount of money would be enough. None of the companies expressed a desire to return to the conventional Monday through Friday schedule.