The 4 day week, a work revolution

Have you ever felt like you don’t have time to enjoy your life between your 9 to 5? We all did. In a world where everything seems to be moving so fast, what we all need is more time. Just thinking about a day where you could go grocery shopping, go to the doctor, to the gym… That does seem like a more normal work-life balance.

The original idea

The 4 day week is introducing a new revolution to our society. Working 4 days instead of 5 days a week while keeping the same amount of work and the same salary. That does sound like a dream, doesn’t it? But is this work model really feasible? On the official website, you can find a course to help business leaders and managers to embrace this new work approach. The whole goal is to help build a productive and reduced work model for the company that focuses on the employee’s well-being.

For the businesses and organizations that actually chose this system there is a result of better work-life balance and reduced stress among workers. In Germany, this model starts in 2024 for the companies that choose to participate. In the country, the opinions are mixed about this project. For some, it’s a great idea which you can see the results of in other European countries that shows a decrease of stress and an increase of productivity. For others, this system won’t allow enough time to accomplish what is normally done in 5 days and businesses could pay the price.

So, is it a realistic program? What are the benefits of it for the company? Let’s see together the pros and cons of such a model.

The pros and cons of the 4 day week

The advantages of adopting this system

The main benefit of this system would be to keep the same productivity while reducing the stress level. The previous pilot projects have shown great results in this domain. A British study published in 2023 showed that employees were less stressed and it also showed less risks of suffering a mental illness, like a burnout for example. There was also a decrease of anxiety and fatigue during this pilot project that was shown.

In relation to the first advantage, it shows that there are less sick days taken by employees. This can be explained by the fact that employees have more time to recover and also have less stress in their lives. It is a great advantage for the company itself with less people away on sick leave and a general reduced risk of mental illnesses.

The previous pilot projects showed an increase of equality between men and women. For example, a man involved in the 4 day week program will use his day off to take care of the children, go shopping, do some cleaning… which leads to a more equal household. Reduced working hours and more support with chores could also help women who put aside their careers after having kids to go back to work.

A four-day week makes the company also more attractive to workers. It could help companies to have more applicants for jobs that are seeking workers. It could help companies that have a shortage of skilled workers. This could be an advantage for companies and with such a system, employees could more easily accept other things like a reduced salary.

Even though this one is not proven at 100%, fewer working hours could be good for the climate. This means less people commuting daily for work and then a reduced carbon footprint. But this would also depend on the employees lifestyle and the way they’d choose to spend their day off.

The disadvantages of this model

Even if the goal would be to have less stress in general, this could lead to the contrary. Having to squeeze more work into fewer working hours could cause a decrease of stress during a shorter schedule. When more has to be done with less time, it could cause a lot of stress.

The productivity level is also very hard to measure. A lot of business leaders are still doubting about keeping the same amount of productivity in shorter hours. It is actually difficult to really see how this work model would influence a company’s productivity. It could end up in higher costs for the company with less working hours and the same or reduced amount of productivity.

Some industries can’t offer a four day week model. It’s true that this system is not suitable for a lot of companies. For example, if you have a booking platform which offers customer service 5 days a week, changing this to 4 days could reduce the number of bookings. A lot of fields need to be providing services at a certain time and this can’t be reduced to 4 days a week. For example, this could not be doable for the nursing or transportation companies. Services like hotels, restaurants or supermarkets would pay too much of a price to use this model.

My opinion on this work model

First of all, I think that choosing this option and trying this work model says a lot about a company. You can already see that their employee’s well-being is one of their top priorities and that’s something you can’t find in a lot of workplaces. I know that a lot of companies are afraid of a loss of productivity, but the thing is if you get a good organization and manage your working hours, it’s definitely possible. This whole model is about organization. If you already have a look at your weekly schedule, I’m sure you can find meetings that could be replaced by emails or slack messages.

I think that this idea can be realistic, depending on the company’s organization. For a lot of companies, there’s a need to restructure their work model and system. If not, this is never gonna work. For some companies, when the organization is already well-structured and meetings are already reduced to the necessary ones, I think there’s less work and better chances. Having some help to organize this new system could be a good way to start. I think this is a promising model that should grow in the next few years due to our generation. We want to be able to live our lives while we can enjoy them, travel while having a stable income and job. With a retirement system that doesn’t help us to see what our future could be, we want to be able to enjoy life now. I think from a long-term perspective, it can definitely be realistic. It will take time for employees and companies to adjust to this new model and this whole new way of working. Obviously, there’s always a risk in change, but that’s what makes it interesting.