Four-day work week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/feb/19/four-day-week-trial-study-finds-lower-stress-but-no-cut-in-output Analysis of one of the biggest trials yet of the four-day working week has revealed no fall in output, decreases in stress and increased staff engagement, fuelling hopes that a better work-life-balance for millions could finally be in sight. Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand financial services company, switched its 240 staff from a five-day week to a four-day week last November and maintained their pay. Productivity increased in the four days they worked so there was no drop in the total amount of work done, a study of the trial released on Tuesday has revealed. The trial was monitored by academics at the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology. Among the Perpetual Guardian staff they found scores given by workers about leadership, stimulation, empowerment and commitment all increased compared with a 2017 survey.

Seems about right, I work from home where I can work however I see fit, I can sometimes miss a week entirely and still just be as productive, or even more, than a 40 hour work week. More flexi time and less work like this is definitely a good idea to implement.

Makes sense in an office environment, but I'm assuming it wouldn't work in retail/warehouse/trade.

i'll probably never get to experience remote work (our developer network is cut off from the internet for security reasons), but i really enjoy the flexi time policies we have. i don't have to worry about waking up late for work as long as i get my 80 hours in for the pay period, plus i can have a 3-day weekend every other week or every friday off if i just work an extra hour or 2 every day

Also in retail/hourly positions, employees are often begging for more working hours, not less. When I worked hourly jobs I was limited at 29 hours per week so they didn't have to give me benefits. It meant less money for me, not more time off. However, I now get a salary and work 5 days a week. I'd gladly take a paycut of some kind (not sure how much) in order to never have to work a Friday again

They kept their pay the same, so it would follow that retail workers would get the same treatment in a perfect world and wouldn't just get their pay slashed while losing a day.

If I worked fewer hours but got paid the same then that's a raise

Not if you're paid by the hour

I had a few semester where I had a four day weekend, it was easily one of my least stressful and I was able to get a lot done that semester.

Not going to happen until the old guard goes away. If you work at a company headed up by anyone in their late 50's and onwards, they'll straight up laugh in your face if you suggest stuff like this.

I wouldn't be so sure. My experience working in retail many years ago was being saddled with a bunch of busywork even though there was no real work to be done. "facing up" is basically "make yourself look busy for the cameras so the anally retentive regional manager doesnt ask me questions".

I work 6 days a week 🤷‍♂️

This makes total sense, and while the company I work at doesn't quite employ the 4-day work week there's a heavy allowance on flex-hours. I can take a different-sized lunch hour and go home earlier, I can arrive between 9 and 10 or even earlier if I wish and leave earlier in the day as well. I do generally feel more productive when I have more control over my working hours and when I don't have to dread "clocking out".

I used to do 4 days, it was really good. The only downside was 12 hours a day. After 7 hours, you're already pulling your hairs out.

It easily could, you just have to manage shifts correctly. People could go to a 4-day work week.

I'm currently working 1000-1900 M-F and It's not necessarily -difficult- but.. I'm tired of it.

http://www.differencebetween.info/sites/default/files/images/3/rich.jpg So what you're saying is that my employees are slacking off for an entire day each week?

Most office jobs aren't paid by the hour.

Because the 4-day work week has the same amount of hours as the 5-day, you just do them on 4 days instead of 5. This has been shown to be massively preferable; an entire day to yourself is more meaningful, imo, than that same time split across the end of 4 other days. Clearly a number of people agree, after experiencing it for themselves.

This sort of solution simply won't work for a lot of trade jobs. 8 hours on a construction site is doable, 2 extra hours of overtime is maybe doable, but 3 hours is really pushing it. Without dividing the work in this way, construction sites would lose a whole day of progress, and that gets felt. This is not even mentioning the fact that material shipments sometimes come late, and so extending a work day wouldn't even necessarily correlate to the same amount of productivity. Source: Being a laborer on a few construction sites.

Right, but construction sites aren't office jobs, which is what this trial was focused on. I agree that many jobs require their own unique ways of handling worker hours and scheduling

A note: You only get about 4 hours of good work out of a person before things start plummeting.

I agree. I think the way we handle offices and jobs can be done so much better. Only struggle is preventing people from treating a 4-hour work day the same as they used to treat their 8-hour days, thus only getting 2 hours of work out :v

Worrying lack of understanding of what a 4 day work week is ITT. The whole idea is that you work the same number of hours over fewer days. So posts like this: Don't make sense.

If they stagger when the employees start in the week, then it could work, as some would always be there.

I don't know about warehouses/trades, but it absolutely needs to happen in retail. The only thing stopping it from not working now is retail not willing to hire any more than a skeleton crew. If they could (and they sometimes do), they would have people do 12 hour shifts instead of the scheduled 9 hour shift plus the sometimes 1+ hour of "overtime".

Yeah I work a 4 day week plus one day at home, I don't feel like my productivity has changed that much from my previous five day. Its mostly cause I work on projects, then have downtime in-between them until the next project.

I'm in a similar situation with 1 day at home. I'm definitely less productive during that 1 day, but I get a lot more done the other 4 than before. I commute an hour and a half a day, so just cutting that out reduces stress immensely.

Makes sense. I've been doing three-day weeks in training and I feel like I've been knocking it out of the park so far. Even did four-day weeks for a while and that was fine; I definitely could handle a four-day week for a real job and I consider myself a fairly lazy and scatterbrained individual. I don't think employers get that two days is just not enough time to decompress after a five-day week, only to go back and do another five-day week. I think the 99% of the population who've gone through our public school system would agree that it's a miserable experience. People just perform better if you give them adequate downtime to recover; working them to the bone only decreases their productivity as the fatigue racks up and you're getting less good work out of each hour you pay them for. There's no point to driving them like slaves, because not even the employer sees benefit and you're just making the workers miserable.

For several years I worked Tues-Fri (10 hour days) and had Sat-Mon off, 4x3 schedule. I always felt productive at work and never dreaded the upcoming week... always felt great. It gives you one day to decompress/relax/do nothing, and 2 full days to indulge in hobbies. 3 nights is also enough for a weekend getaway. My QoL greatly increased, and our office productivity boosted because we had an extra couple hours outside of regular "business hours" that we could hammer down and crush our workload. I've recently changed to 8x6 (double 4x3)... so 8 straight 10 hour days followed by 6 days off. My QoL has increased even further. Working weekends is fantastic for powering through your workload without distractions and looking forward to 6 days off is a really nice reward. But I understand that this schedule is difficult to implement and can also stretch a team pretty thin. I really hope to see more companies adopt a 4x3 schedule. If the department has the man-power, spreading Mon-Thurs and Tues-Fri shifts across the team will give you full-week coverage.