Study in Iceland found many employees stayed productive in four-day workweek
Several large-scale trials of a four-day workweek in Iceland were an “overwhelming success,” with many workers shifting to shorter hours without affecting their productivity, and in some cases improving it, in what researchers called “groundbreaking evidence for the efficacy of working time reduction.”
Some of the trials’ key findings showed that a shorter week translated into increased well-being of employees among a range of indicators, from stress and burnout to health and work-life balance. These issues have become more pressing as reports of burnout among employees around the world have risen after more than a year of pandemic-related stress and deteriorated mental health.
The trials were conducted between 2015 and 2019 and were initiated by the Reykjavik City Council and the Icelandic national government in response to demands from trade unions and civil society organizations for shorter workweeks.
The trials ultimately involved 2,500 workers, more than 1 percent of the nation’s working population, who moved from working 40 hours a week to a 35- or 36-hour week, without a reduction in pay.
The results were gathered from a wide range of workplaces — from offices to preschools, social service providers and hospitals — leading researchers to conclude that the “transformative positive effects” of a shorter workweek are beneficial for employees and businesses alike.
“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,” Will Stronge, director of research at the Autonomy think tank, said in a statement.
The Association for Sustainable Democracy in Iceland, along with Autonomy, a U.K.-based organization that does research on the future of work and economic planning and has been a longtime proponent of four-day weeks, published the findings of the large-scale trials of the program last Sunday.
But some have noted the possible drawbacks for lower-wage, hourly workers in particular — groups that would lose income and are sometimes left out of the conversation.
“Very often when we think about life conflict and overwork, we have a vision of white-collar workers in mind,” Daniel Schneider, a Harvard Kennedy School professor who studies transformations in work, told Business Insider last year.
Participants in the program said the work-time reductions allowed them to run errands, participate in home duties, exercise and spend quality time with family and friends. This shift often translated into less stress at home and wider social wellbeing.
In the U.S., the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter recently announced it will experiment with a four-day workweek next year, the Atlantic reported. Buffer, a social media software company said early this year that that it would continue the fourday system “for the foreseeable future” after successful tests.
After the trials’ success in Iceland, trade unions engaged in contract negotiations and achieved permanent reductions in working hours, with about 86 percent of Iceland’s entire working population now either implementing shorter weeks or gaining the right to shorten their working hours, according to the report.