The Four-Day Workweek

① The Predicament

Is a four-day workweek coming? A recent KPMG survey of 100 big-company chief executive officers found almost 1 in 3 were exploring such a shift. Pre-pandemic experiments with condensed workweeks in Iceland, Japan, Sweden and other places have lent support to the notion that employees and employers could benefit. Governments including Belgium and the Dominican Republic have sponsored four-day trials. Many bosses still consider a four-day workweek without a reduction in pay as a productivity killer.

With opinions hardening on both sides, can employers find common ground?

② The Case For

Four-day boosters point to the success of experiments involving dozens of companies in the UK, US and other countries. In a 2022 test, 54 of the 61 participating organizations were still doing a four-day workweek one year later, and half of them made it permanent. Most reported improved staff well-being, half said it reduced quitting, and one-third said it helped recruiting efforts.

“We’re getting more of a realistic picture,” says Dale Whelehan, chief executive officer of 4 Day Week Global, the New Zealand group that helped organize the trials. “We also know there are a lot of experiments happening inside large organizations.” Dove soap maker Unilever Plc, for instance, has expanded a trial from New Zealand to its Australian operations.

③ The Case Against

Kevin Rockmann, a professor of management at the Costello College of Business at George Mason University, says deploying a four-day week broadly in the white-collar world won’t take hold unless there’s an overhaul of corporate culture, particularly in the US. Many American workers are glued to their email and Slack messages all day, even while on vacation, and these habits won’t go away overnight. The biggest workaholics are often senior leaders, who set the tone for the rank and file.

“Unless you train managers to make sure people are shutting off, it’s unclear how this would improve things—and might actually make things worse,” Rockmann says.

Simply working longer days on Monday through Thursday, with Zoom calls starting as early as 7 a.m., could produce even more stress, particularly on parents.

④ The Common Ground One idea is the nine-day fortnight, where work shuts down every other Friday, an approach that companies such as human resources software maker Dayforce Inc. and accounting firm Grant Thornton have taken in some regions.

Having a well-thought-out plan is essential. “You need to know why you want to do this,” says Natalie Breece, chief people and diversity officer at ThredUp, an online apparel resale marketplace. “If you just start by saying ‘I want four days’ and then back into the other things, it’s much harder.”

Coming up with better ways to gauge employee productivity is crucial. Whelehan says many organizations he works with in the four-day trials don’t know how they’ll judge productivity during the test. Develop smarter metrics, he says, and even if your organization doesn’t adopt the four-day workweek, “you will end up in a better place than where you started.”