Employees work better and tire less when working a four-day week, according to a six-month trial involving thousands of individuals.
The research, led by Boston College associate professor of sociology Wen Fan and economics professor Juliet Schor, also found that changes to working patterns led to better job satisfaction and fewer sleep problems.
The study, reported in Nature Human Behaviour, was designed to test the effects of the four-day workweek with no reduction in pay. It relied on a six-month trial involving 2,896 employees in 141 organizations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, and the US. The researchers compared work and health-related indicators – including burnout, job satisfaction, and mental and physical health – before and after the intervention using survey data. A further 285 employees at 12 companies did not participate in the trial and acted as a control.
The research found that switching to a four-day workweek led to an actual reduction in average working hours of around five hours per week. However, those who reduced their workweek by eight hours or more saw greater benefits, which the authors attributed to fewer sleep problems and less fatigue.
“The results indicate that income-preserving four-day workweeks are an effective organizational intervention for enhancing workers’ well-being,” the researchers said.
The researchers noted that the study was limited in that companies volunteered to participate, and the sample consisted of smaller companies from English-speaking countries. More extensive government-sponsored trials might help provide a clearer picture, they said.
While several factors may explain the effect, one possibility is “increased intrinsic motivation at work,” the study said. “Unfortunately, [we] cannot assess [this] due to data limitations.”
Nonetheless, the researchers found that the study showed that work time reduction is associated with improvements in employee well-being, a pattern not observed in the control companies. “Across outcomes, the magnitude is larger for the two work-related measures – burnout and job satisfaction – followed by mental health, with the smallest changes reported in physical health. This pattern is expected, as changes in physical health may take time to manifest,” the authors said.
“Despite its limitations, this study has important implications for understanding the future of work, with 4-day workweeks probably being a key component. Scientific advances from this work will inform the development of interventions promoting better organization of paid work and worker well-being. This task has become increasingly important with the rapid expansion of new digital, automation, and artificial general intelligence technologies.” ®
