What is considered the most comprehensive pilot in the world regarding the shortening of the working week to four days is recording positive interim results, according to an update published today (Tuesday) by the organizers of the experiment taking place in Great Britain. A vast majority of the companies that participated in the experiment, which began more than six months ago, decided in recent weeks to continue with the new format, and not to return to a five-day work week.
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According to the organizers of the experiment, the sense of well-being of the employees in the companies participating in the experiment improved significantly, the number of sick days they took dropped sharply, the abandonment rate of the companies decreased and almost all of them reported satisfaction from a business point of view and in terms of work productivity. The full results will be published in the future by the scientists accompanying the experiment and the companies’ performance in real time.
The comprehensive experiment is designed to test the effects of shortening the normal work week to only four working days on a series of indicators concerning the companies participating in it, from business performance, through gender representation in the workplace to the employees’ sense of health and work-life balance. Nearly 3,000 employees in 61 companies began the experiment in June 2022. Performance measurement is done by researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, as well as from Boston College in the USA.
The experiment is intended to last for about six months, and today the organizers of the experiment will present to British members of parliament partial results of what will be done in it from June to the end of 2022. According to data published before the meeting, it was reported that 58 of the 61 companies that started the experiment decided to continue with the new work format temporarily and actually to continue the experiment. 18 of them have already decided to make the four-day work week the permanent format of work in the company. In a survey conducted in the middle of the experiment, it emerged that 46% of the companies reported identical business performance, 34% slightly improved performance and 15% significantly improved performance.
“A significant breakthrough”
One of the organizers of the experiment told the “Guardian” that “this is a significant breakthrough”, and provided partial results of what has been done so far. According to him, “In a wide variety of sectors, the employees’ sense of well-being has improved dramatically. At the same time, business activity and productivity have remained the same, or even improved.”
According to the partial data so far, the number of sick days in the tested companies dropped by two-thirds after the transition to a shortened work week, and the abandonment rate of the companies participating in the experiment dropped by 57%. 39% of the employees said they were less stressed, compared to the period before the start of the experiment. Nearly 50% of them said that there is no change in the stress level. Half of the workers reported an “improvement” in their “mental health”, and 37% also reported an improvement in their “physical health”.
The experiment is part of the “4 Day Week” campaign promoted by a coalition of organizations that support the shortening of the work week from five to four days, on the grounds that this will not harm productivity – and may even increase it – and at the same time will contribute to the sense of balance between work and leisure, increase the proportion of working women and even save resources Many in health care expenses due to employee burnout. Similar experiments have already begun in Spain, Ireland, and other countries, but the British experiment is considered the largest of its kind. Among the organizations accompanying the move is the Autonomy Foundation, which is affiliated with the left in Britain.
The organization arranged for special training for the companies that volunteered for the pilot on how to implement the four-day work week, which basically guarantees workers the same pay for fewer days of work per week. Employees are not officially obligated to work overtime during the four working days. The change is also accompanied by productivity experts at work. There are those who pointed out in advance the fact that the procedure is accompanied by a large investment of experts as a possibility of biasing the conclusions of the experiment, and wondering if it is indeed suitable for all companies.
Independent studies have also suggested that employees at companies that have shortened the work week may feel that they face increased pressure to perform exceptionally well at work, which may lead to rapid burnout and resignation. The companies that joined the British experiment are mostly small to medium-sized companies, and the question of whether the move is suitable for large industrial companies may remain open even in the end.
Among the companies participating in the British experiment: the British arm of the Canon photography company, which deals in medical devices; A software and trade management company called BEACON, a robotics company called Rivelin, a social bank branch called Charity in Tonbridge, a digital advertising company called TRIO from Leeds as well as other companies whose names have not been published.