From today’s NPR News:
The four-day workweek is proving to be the gift that keeps on giving.
Companies that have tried it are reporting happier workers, lower turnover and greater efficiency. Now, there’s evidence that those effects are long lasting.
The latest data come from a trial in the U.K. In 2022, 61 companies moved their employees to a four-day workweek with no reduction in pay.
They began it as a six-month experiment. But today, 54 of the companies still have the policy. Just over half have declared it permanent, according to researchers with the think tank Autonomy, who organized the trial along with the groups 4-Day Week Campaign and 4 Day Week Global.
Follow-up surveys help to explain the four-day workweek’s success.
Improvements in physical and mental health, work-life balance, and general life satisfaction, as well as reductions in burnout, have been maintained over the past year, says sociologist Juliet Schor of Boston College, who’s part of the research team. Workers report higher job satisfaction now than before the trial began.
“The results are really stable. It’s not a novelty effect,” she says. “People are feeling really on top of their work with this new model.”
Similarly positive results are emerging from other four-day workweek trials, including in the U.S., Schor says.
Read the complete story here.