In 2018, Kiwi estate planning firm Perpetual Guardian grabbed global headlines by trialling a four-day working week for its 240 staff while keeping them on the same pay.
Company founder Andrew Barnes said that it wasn’t about having an extra day off, but “delivering productivity” while “meeting personal and team business goals”.
And his instinct was right. The trial was monitored by academics at the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology who found that there was an increase in scores given about leadership, stimulation, empowerment, and commitment. Stress levels tumbled as productivity rose by 20%, with Barnes saying it was an idea “whose time has come”.
According to the World Health Organisation, working long hours can severely impact health, blamed for 745,000 deaths from stroke and ischemic heart disease in 2016, a 29% increase since 2000.
FOUR DAYS, FOUR CORNERS
Between 2015 and 2019, Iceland conducted multiple four-day week trials that involved around 1% of the nation’s working population. Such was its success that 86% of its workforce has now moved – or is in the process of moving – to reduced hours for the same pay. In 2019, Microsoft Japan moved its 2,300-strong workforce to a four-day day week for five weeks and saw productivity rise by an astonishing 40%.
Earlier this year, the Belgian government announced a series of reforms to allow its workers to be able to ignore their bosses (well, any work-related messages sent outside office hours) without fear of reprisal, while also choosing to work four-day weeks if they so wished (though with five days’ worth of hours).
“With this agreement, we set a beacon for an economy that is more innovative, sustainable and digital,” Belgian prime minister, Alexander de Croo, told a press conference upon announcing the reforms. “The aim is to be able to make people and businesses stronger.”
Pushes to shorten working hours reach back more than a century to a time when six-day weeks were standard. Carmaker Henry Ford is often credited for reducing this to five days in the US in 1926 which was further normalised with the global spread of the trade union movement. As early as the 1950s, labour groups were advocating for a reduction of the working week to four days.
According to research by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, four-day weeks became three times more common in the USA from 1973 to 2018, benefiting an extra eight million workers. Now, the pandemic has catalysed another rethink for industry leaders around the world.
FOUR DAYS ON TRIAL
In June in the UK began the biggest ever four-day working week trial, organised by non-profit 4 Day Week Global, established by business advocate, investor and philanthropist Charlotte Lockhart and Andrew Barnes of Perpetual Guardian fame.
“As we emerge from the pandemic, more and more companies are recognising that the new frontier for competition is quality of life,” says Joe O’Conner, 4 Day Week Global’s CEO. “The impact of the ‘great resignation’ is now proving that workers from a diverse range of industries can produce better outcomes while working shorter and smarter.”
Companies in North America, Australia, and here in New Zealand are about to follow the 70 British firms that have signed up for the six-month pilot that sees 3,300 workers employ the 100:80:100™ model: 100% of the pay for 80% of the time, in exchange for a commitment to maintain at least 100% productivity. Further government-backed trials will also take place, all monitored by researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College who will track effects on everything from productivity to workers’ wellbeing. The project, in partnership with the thinktank Autonomy, is the biggest ever of its kind. A previous study by Autonomy found that a four-day week in the public sector would even create up to half a million new jobs.
Down under, the pilot will be monitored by researchers at the Universities of Sydney and Queensland, and the Auckland University of Technology.
“In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Australia pioneered reductions in the length of the working day and working week,” says Professor John Buchanan of the University of Sydney. “It is really exciting that we could be re-discovering a spirit of genuine innovation and social progress in this part of the world.”
FOUR DAYS FOR LESS CARBON
Advocates argue that the four-day week will help fight the climate crisis. A 2019 British study estimated four-day weeks would reduce carbon emissions by almost 20% (127 million tonnes) by the year 2025 – the equivalent of removing all private cars from UK roads. A similar US study in the state of Utah projected a yearly decrease of 6,000 metric tonnes.
“We recognised well before the pandemic that the five-day week is no longer fit for purpose, and as we trialled and studied the four-day week it became clear that this is a necessary part of the solution to restore climate balance, among many other documented benefits,” says Barnes. “We simply cannot go on as we have been.”
