Embracing the four-day workweek
Employers cite higher productivity and morale
A few years ago, Amy Balliett, CEO of a Seattle-based design and marketing firm, noticed that as the workweek slogged on, her employees’ energy and productivity wilted.
“That would slump to such an extent that the same task on Monday would take double the time by Friday,” says Balliet, of Killer Visual Strategies.
So she decided to squeeze the workweek into four 10-hour days, with her 30 employees taking off either Friday or Monday.
Now, she says, “our team has more energy throughout the week since they have three days to recharge instead of just two.” And with less time to complete tasks, “they’re far more efficient and focused,” producing 25% more with the same size staff.
The perk also has bolstered recruitment, cutting in half the time it takes to fill vacancies.
A small but growing number of U.S. businesses are adopting a four-day workweek to boost productivity and morale and to provide a competitive edge in the scramble for employees.
While some scrunch the standard 40 hours into four days, others simply shed a day and require four eight-hour days, typically with no cut in pay.
“In this intensely competitive labor market, employers are figuring out that to attract talent, they have to start offering incentives that differentiate them,” says Ian Siegel, CEO of ZipRecruiter, a jobs marketplace.
Companies also are turning to a shortened week to reduce employee burnout, says Paul Pellman, CEO of Kazoo, a human resources software and consulting firm.
Fifteen percent of organizations offer four-day workweeks of 32 hours or less to at least some employees, up from 13% in 2017, according to an April survey by the Society for Human Resource Management. And a poll last year by staffing firm Robert Half found that 17% of companies had compressed workweeks that squish the same number of hours into fewer days.
Siegel says those figures are likely skewed by industries such as nursing, trucking and warehousing that routinely mandate three or four 10- or 12-hour days.
Yet the share of employers shifting to four-day weeks is rising. The number of ZipRecruiter job postings that mention four-day weeks is up 67% so far this year, following jumps of 65% last year and 51% in 2017.
Employers that advertise the fourday schedule receive 13% more applications on average.
With annual raises climbing the past year but still limited to 3% or so, “worklife balance is where (employers) are going,” Siegel says. A growing number already offer more liberal telecommuting options and flexible hours. The four-day week may be the next frontier.
Many workers prefer 4 days
A third of workers globally and 40% in the U.S. would prefer a four-day week, found a survey last year by the Workforce Institute at Kronos.
Another 20% want a three-day week. Just 28% are content with a traditional five days.
“People want to work — they don’t want to work five days,” says Dan Schawbel, partner in Future Workplace, an executive development firm that analyzed the survey results.
Megan Popovic, 25, who took a project manager job at Killer Visual Strategies in February, says the four-day week was “a pretty significant factor” in her decision. She uses her Mondays off to run errands, go to the beach and cap weekend trips to her hometown. On workdays, she says, “I feel more focused,” allowing her to accomplish more.
She’s so accustomed to the schedule that she says going back to five days at another job would be tough.
PDQ.com, a Salt Lake City-based software company, switched to a fourday, 36-hour workweek two years ago. CEO Sean Anderson realized many employees worked half a day Friday or were generally less engaged anyway.
“People love it,” he says. “We have the same professionalism but higher morale.” And it now takes two to three months to fill job openings, down from about six months previously, he says.
‘State of flow’
In 2017, Wildbit, of Philadelphia, another software maker, took the concept a step further, shifting to four eighthour days. CEO Natalie Nagele winnowed a slew of weekly meetings to just two and asked her 30 employees to limit usage of email and Slack, a work collaboration and communication tool.
By getting rid of such distractions, “you get in a state of flow,” she says. “We are producing better-quality and more work in the last two years than we did previously.” The extra day off “gives your mind a rest.”
Rian van der Merwe, 41, a Wildbit product manager, worried the shortened schedule meant “we would move too slowly” on launches. And initially, he says, “it was a little bit difficult to find the rhythm” of a four-day week.
Now, he’s a four-day evangelist. He has used Fridays to take up rock climbing and run errands, allowing him to spend more time with his family over the weekend. And with the additional day off, “I invariably spend time thinking about stuff at work, and when Monday rolls around, I have so many things I want to get started. It creates an added energy.”