The 4-day workweek – a passing fad or here to stay?

By Anthony Ariganello, C.M.

Much has been written about the merits of a four-day workweek, especially coming out of the pandemic, where flexible and hybrid work environments have become the norm.

The concept of reduced workweeks has been around for decades, but earlier experiments in the 1960s and 1970s proved less than successful because companies and organizations were trying to ram 40 hours of work into four days.

The findings generally were that the longer the day went on, the less productive employees became, especially because of issues like fatigue and a lack of concertation set in.

According to a value-added article by Josh Bersin, founder and CEO of human capital advisory firm The Josh Bersin Company, in the Harvard Business Review (HBR), he posits: “…who says you have to do 40 hours in four days? There’s a growing body of evidence suggesting that reduced-hour work schedules for the same level of pay are not only feasible when it comes to maintaining outcomes but also potentially advantageous across a number of metrics.”

More recently, wider studies incorporating better data and evidence of reduced workweeks trials have been conducted in Sweden, Ireland, North America, the UK, and Australasia.

Generally, while there’s give and take involved, the overall findings of these studies have resulted in enhanced employee engagement and well-being, as well as helping retention.

In that same article, Mr. Bersin also indicated that a CEO he knows told him that using words like “remote or hybrid” into the job description, tripled the number of job applicants.

There is growing acceptance that the four-day workweek is here to stay, albeit, in different and varying shapes and forms, depending on the types of jobs as well as the sectors the company or organization finds itself in.

Having said that, creativity and innovative thinking might be needed to make the four-day workweek possible. For instance, while the manufacturing and construction sectors, as two examples, might not, at first blush, provide conducive environments, tinkering around with shift scheduling might very well allow a four-day workweek to exist. As would using and deploying Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) to do the round the clock administrative and operational tasks alongside shift scheduling human skills for more strategic thinking and work.?

?And size does not appear to matter. While you might think that introducing a four-day workweek would be more practical in smaller organizations, here’s something that will dispel that myth.

Microsoft Japan tested a four-day workweek in its offices and?productivity jumped by 40%? . The company found that as a result, employees were not only happier – but significantly more productive.

So, are you convinced yet? Well, it is something to consider seriously. Before you embark down this path though, do your research, speak to other organizations who have experimented or are experimenting with this idea, look for best practices, and talk to experts.

To get you started though, keep these points in mind:

1. Think strategically and free up your team members to do more value-added work – take away menial, administrative, and repetitive tasks, and functions, and either outsource those or employ robotic or GAI technology to take those on;
2. Listen and learn – engage in two-way dialogue and communication with your team members to understand the issues and pain points from their perspectives. You also need to take the time to socialize the experiment and, in the process, manage employee expectations;
3. Set-up any four-day workweek introduction as a beta test, a pilot – establish appropriate, specific, and clearly outlined guidelines and parameters;
4. In taking this step, you are entrusting your team to act like grown-ups. However, develop a dispute handling mechanism, with appropriate action to be applied for any infractions. Don’t let a few rotten apples ruin the experiment for the entire team; and
5. Evaluate the experiment part-way through the pilot, and of course, at the end as well. Ensure the metrics you have created at the outset are applicable, based on SMART principles, and are aligned with performance metrics and evaluations.

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