Four days a week as a pilot project in Great Britain

nWork only four days a week but get paid for five days? About 70 companies with 3,300 employees are now experimenting with this in Great Britain. It is said to be the largest pilot project in the world. It is organized by the 4 Day Week Global Group, which is campaigning to reduce working hours to 32 hours per week.

It is the small businesses that are mainly involved. Industries are different. The list includes a Norfolk beachfront fish and chips store, Sheffield-based software company Rivelin Robotics, inheritance tax advisor Stellar Asset Management and Kent-based Charity Bank. A few months ago, online Atom Bank and software company WANdisco began similar four-day-a-week trials. You hope your employees will be happier and more motivated and that your productivity will increase. “100-80-100” is the magic formula that organizers promised: 100 percent productivity with 80 percent of hours worked and 100 percent of wages.

Sociologist Juliet Shore of Boston College, who accompanies the pilot project academically with others and evaluates the results, calls it a “historic attempt.” She studies how employees react to the extra day off. Concretely, they expect less stress and burnout, more job satisfaction, less employee turnover, less layoffs, and higher overall productivity. The four-day week will bring “triple earnings”, especially for employees, companies and the climate, she is optimistic.

Because companies participate voluntarily, they have a good feeling that the experiment will work for them. However, it also suggests that “in order to extend the four-day work week across the economy, government action is required to bring in companies that either cannot see the benefits or whose benefits are lower,” Shore told FAZ Joe O. 4 Day Week Global Group More and more companies are now discovering as the pandemic approaches that they need to offer their employees something new to stay competitive. Shorter working hours are a competitive advantage.