In Return to Growth, Tory peer, and former head of PA Consulting, Jon Moynihan explores the various things that are holding the UK economy back. Among some sensible suggestions is the exhortation that the four-day week is an example of the laziness of the civil service.
The argument has a degree of logic to it. After all, surely if you pay the same wages for fewer hours at work, you’re getting less bang for your buck? Except things aren’t that simple, and we’re getting a growing body of evidence to underpin the fact that we often get more out of people if we don’t make them work quite as long.
Staying at work
One of the earliest advocates of a four-day week was the New Economics Foundation. In a paper published a few years ago, they made the argument that people today take a considerable amount of time off work with stress and burnout. They cite figures from the British Safety Council, which reveal that 57% of all sick days were stress-related, with 44% caused by workload pressure alone.
“Burnout, exhaustion and stress are costly for both workers’ health and the economy,” the report concludes. “Winning shorter working hours without a loss in pay offers a way to tackle symptoms of overwork, providing people with more time to rest and balance other responsibilities.”
Supporting evidence
Numerous studies have shown that this is far from a theoretical process. For instance, one multi-year study of four-day working in Iceland showed similar results to that proposed by the New Economics Foundation.
The study, which was undertaken between 2015 and 2019, involved over 1% of the country’s entire working population, with participants reducing their hours to 35 per week from the standard 40, with no reduction in their pay.
The results suggest that productivity and services remained pretty much the same, or in some cases even improved, despite this reduction in hours. What’s more, the wellbeing of employees rose considerably, with stress and burnout both falling.
“This study shows that the world’s largest ever trial of a shorter working week in the public sector was by all measures an overwhelming success,” the researchers say. “It shows that the public sector is ripe for being a pioneer of shorter working weeks—and lessons can be learned for other governments.”
Happier people
This was further reinforced by a recent study from the University of Münster, which found that giving people a four-day working week results in a big boost in life satisfaction.
The results came from an analysis of four-day working at 45 organizations across a range of sectors through 2024. The results are positive across the board, with a boost to both employee health and happiness.
Importantly, for those with concerns about productivity and economic growth, the results show that financial performance indicators were unchanged from the previous year, suggesting that employees got more out of their time when they worked fewer hours. What’s more, these gains were consistent at both managerial and employee levels.
Becoming more productive
The German experiment revealed that when people worked less, they were often more effective at reducing distractions and generally streamlining how they did things. A big part of this was reducing both the length and the frequency of meetings. Many also reported using new digital tools to further boost productivity.
“The potential of reduced working hours seems to be hidden under complicated processes, meetings and a lack of digitalization,” the researchers explain. “Organizations need to do the necessary transformation work to fully realize the benefits of a four-day week.”
Each of these studies reinforces the notion that there isn’t a link between a shorter working week and reduced productivity. This was further supported by a four-day week pilot introduced by Microsoft in Japan in 2019, with the project coinciding with a leap in productivity of around 40%.
Making the change
The German study did suggest some possible issues with the implementation of a four-day week, however, as larger organizations typically only did so for certain employees or teams.
Across all of the studies, a recurring theme was around the importance of the right culture to ensure success. The researchers found that organizations typically required a cultural shift to ensure that the reduction in hours delivered the right results.
Similarly, there appeared to be little real consensus around the way in which the model was introduced, as while most organizations provided one day off per week, there were differences in terms of whether that day was fixed or whether employees were granted autonomy to choose their schedule.
Participants in each of the studies showed a strong willingness to continue with the four-day week, but while there appears to be consensus around the benefits among those who participated, the wider debate seems likely to rumble on.
For instance, while workers in the UK might earn the right to request a four-day week under government plans, it’s still suggested that they will have to continue putting in the same number of hours, which kind of defeats the point. As with remote working, it seems overwhelming evidence can only go so far in driving change.
