Have you considered a 4-Day Workweek?

There’s been some talk recently about reducing our normal 5-day workweek to just 4-days and in fact, some businesses have implemented this system. 

I know we’d all love to work fewer hours, and so a 4-day work week might lead to happier employers, but as a business owner, I had to understand what impact this would have on my business… surely we’d get less done and see a dip in our profits? 

So I decided to investigate further.

I looked at the advantages of the 4-day working week and here are some of the benefits I found:

• Cost reduction: operating a business over 4 days instead of 5 saves you in operational costs. Energy bills, for example, would be reduced simply because the office is being used less. In addition, with one less working day, companies would see a reduction in things like expenses made by their employees.

• Happier staff: yes, I’m stating the obvious, but it’s important to have happy staff. When your workers are happy, they are more productive, more dedicated, more likely to go out of their way to help. Not to mention unhappy employees distract other employees from doing their job. Having happier staff will benefit your business in so many ways.

• Improved well-being: workers are able to catch up on sleep with an extra day off work, take more time to do their household jobs to avoid rushing. They become less stressed, better rested and their overall health improves. 

• Increased employee retention: happy employees, who have a good work-life balance, tend to stay longer, leading to better employee retention. It can also be a great way to attract new employees.

Now, let’s take a look at the disadvantages:

• It doesn’t always work: a 4-day work week won’t work for every business and every industry.

• Stress and Overwhelm: if it is essential that employees work the same number of hours, across fewer days, this might lead to longer work shifts, which in turn could cause staff stress and overall wellbeing.

I have seen the effects of having to meet tight deadlines due to shorter working days. It hasn't been pleasant, to say the least.

• Holiday entitlement: how does this affect holiday entitlement? Will employees get fewer holiday days? And how will they feel if that’s the case? An extra day off each week is fantastic, but not at the expense of a 14-day holiday abroad.

So, these are the advantages and disadvantages, but how would it look in a real-life scenario? Well, according to recent trials, it looks promising

They trialed the 4-day work week in Iceland for four years. Workers were paid the same but worked fewer hours and productivity either remained the same or actually improved in the majority of workplaces. Because of this trial, unions renegotiated working patterns and now 86% of Iceland’s workforce have been given the option to move to shorter hours for the same pay. Workers have commented that they feel less stressed, less at risk of becoming burnt out, they have more time to spend with their families, do hobbies, catch up on house jobs, and DIY. Overall, they feel like their work-life balance has been improved.

Japan’s Microsoft office also tested the 4-day week and found that employees were both happier and much more productive. The results of this trial saw productivity boosted by a massive 40%. During this time, employee absences were reduced by 25%, the amount of electricity being used was lowered by 23% and employees printed 59% fewer pages than usual, all of which made great savings for the office. Overall, 92% of the employees said they liked the shorter workweek.

So, how do you know if this is right for you and your business? 

The only real thing you can do is guess… and I don’t mean flip a coin, but think about it objectively. Think about how much you expect your running costs to reduce by, what other savings you can expect to see, use the trials as an example. Then also think about what you could be losing, how much work might go undone, and how this would affect your profits. 

The best thing you can do is try it for yourself. It isn’t suitable for every business and so the only real way you’ll know for sure that it doesn’t work for you, is by giving it a go. 

I am interested to know… if you got an extra day off work each week, how would you spend it? What would you do?