The Pros and Cons of a Four-Day Workweek: A Comprehensive Guide
Four-Day Workweeks Are Gaining Traction.
The rise of remote work has lead to much discussion about the four-day workweek.
Some organizations have given it a spin. Some have found success with a few caveats. Does it make sense for your organization? In this article, we’ll see if that is the case.
More free time in the calendar!
We will look at the following:
- The Types of Four-Day Workweeks
- Positive Findings on Four-Day Workweeks
- Drawbacks of Four-Day Workweeks
- How To Implement a Four-Day Workweek
1. The Types of Four-Day Workweeks
Let’s first distinguish the different types of four-day workweeks.
One type is working ~40 hours over the course of 4 days. For example, 8-6 over four days instead of 9-5 over five. Compressed workday is a term used for this.
The second type is 9-5 over 4 days, for 32 hours. Some organizations will pay less as a result, or remain in full.
Some organizations have experimented with giving Fridays off. Others give employees the option to choose what days they want off.
This article is focusing on the second type.
2. Positive Findings on Four-Day Workweeks
I’ve collected many articles on the topic to gather findings. Let’s take a look at the discoveries.
The Pros and Cons of a 4 Day Working Week
Not only did employees maintain the same productivity level, but they also showed improvements in job satisfaction, teamwork, work/life balance and company loyalty. Employees also experienced less stress with a decrease of 45% to 38%.
The results from this study are relatively unsurprising given that some of the world’s most productive countries, like Norway, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, on average work around 27 hours a week — the same hours proposed for a UK 4 day work week. On the other hand, Japan, a nation notoriously known for overworked employees, ranks as the 20th out of 35 countries for productivity.
Roughly two million British people are not currently in employment due to childcare responsibilities and 89% of these people are women.
A 4 day work week would promote an equal workplace as employees would be able to spend more time with their families and better juggle care and work commitments.
Fewer working days, fewer moments of these.
BambooHR: Real Results: The Pros & Cons of a 4-Day Workweek
62% said their employees call in sick less often.
70% said their employees are less stressed.
78% said their employees are happier.
The benefits participants found in working fewer hours showcase just how much better people’s lives can be with less time at work and more flexibility.
This includes:
– Being able to run errands more easily, allowing them to spend more time with loved ones
– Having men take the initiative more often with household chores (in heterosexual couples)
– Having more time to do things for themselves, like spending time on hobbies or picking children up from school
– Being less stressed at home
– Helping single parents spend more time with their children
– Tightening social connections more widely, as people had more time to spend together
91 percent of Buffer employees said they’re happier and more productive since the change to a 32-hour workweek.
Not bad! Looks like there is merit to this concept.
To summarize these findings, work-life balance received a noticeable improvement. More time for people to work on personal pursuits and family.
Another factor is the increase in productivity. As Parkinson’s Law states, work expands to fill the time available. An additional day off can do wonders for recharging the old batteries.
Another positive is the talent you can attract. A four-day workweek is going to appeal to many. It could make the difference in moving to your organization and leaving their five-day workweek from prior.
3. Drawbacks of Four-Day Workweeks
Of course, we have to look at the other side of the coin as well.
The Pros and Cons of a 4 Day Working Week
Customers complained that they were unable to access government services with offices closed on a Friday.
BambooHR: Real Results: The Pros & Cons of a 4-Day Workweek
82 percent of employers who didn’t offer a four-day workweek said making employees available to customers trumps the need to offer flexible work.
Close to 30 percent said they wouldn’t use flexible work options even if they were offered because of the “potential consequences to their professional growth and lack of trust from leadership.”
45% also worried about being perceived as lazy by their colleagues, so much so that it would turn them off to the concept of a four-day workweek.
As they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
In many of the articles, a drop in customer service was a common point. Unless your external partners also work four days a week, issues will arise. Customers will take their business elsewhere if your availability is limited.
Four day workweeks are more of a pipedream for jobs outside the office. Trying a four day workweek would need more staff, which may be out of budget.
There is less time for “water cooler talk” which can impact people’s enjoyment of their job. Having less time for chit chat is a double-edged sword. The negative being less time to build commodore and relationships.
Another factor I saw amongst articles were employees struggling to fill time. No, not with work, but with their free time.
Although this extra time can help them address their addiction to workahol.
4. How To Implement a Four-Day Workweek
So, if you want to move forward in regards to implementing a 4-day workweek, what should you do?
Cut Back On Meetings
The bane of every organization. A common tool for middle managers to look like they’re busy.
Cutting down on meetings is the easiest way to make a four-day workweek viable.
A number of organizations who made the jump to four-day workweeks found cutting down on meetings made it possible. “Could this have been an email?” became a reality.
I wrote a whole post on cutting back on bullshit meetings which you can read here.
To summarize:
- Cut down meeting length. Instead of booking an hour, try 20 minutes or something else.
- Meeting sizes should be small. If two pizzas aren’t enough to feed attendees, you have too many people.
- Leave a meeting when your part is done. If you don’t need to stay around, don’t.
I will note that a lot of this advice comes from individuals who have severe addictions to workahol (Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Gary V).
Conduct a trial run for a four day workweek.
You can dive right in, but I would advise tipping your toes in the pool first. Going full speed into four-day workweeks can induce great amounts of chaos.
A number of organizations will have four day workweeks every couple of weeks over the summer. When staff and customers are on vacation, it’s easier to make a reality.
Summertime is a better time to try this out.
It’s a great testing ground to see how your organization can handle a four day workweek. If you find success, you can try doing them more often, and ease into every week becoming a four day workweek.
Another approach is doing a trial run with various departments. Of course, there are issues where others may be jealous.
You could try one week where one department gets one day off, and then a different department the next week, and so on.
These are quick tests to see if the four-day workweek makes sense for your organization. Before you consider giving people the choice to choose what day they don’t want to work. Before you start communicating with your customers about the changes.
Dip your toes in the water first to see what works.
In Conclusion & Next Steps
We covered the following in regards to the four-day workweek:
- The Types of Four-Day Workweeks
- Positive Findings on Four-Day Workweeks
- Drawbacks of Four-Day Workweeks
- How To Implement a Four-Day Workweek
Is it something worth trying out? That’s up to your organization to decide.
Many organizations have found success with it, with a few caveats. For others, it won’t work whatsoever.
As with anything I suggest, take one small step at a time, get feedback, and continue.
Try a four day workweek in the quieter time of year like summer for testing grounds. See where things go from there.
Thanks for reading.
