Four-day working week creates happier staff - and makes companies more profitable, study claims

Many workers reported being less angsty, and disclosed in the Cambridge study what they were doing with their extra time off. Photo / Cayce Clifford, The New York Times

Switching to a four day week makes companies more money while also boosting staff happiness and reducing burnout, a major study has suggested.

The landmark research project run in part by the University of Cambridge has found that, on average, businesses adopting a four-day working pattern increased their revenues by more than a third.

It comes amid a fierce debate about how to solve Britain’s long-running productivity crisis.

Supporters of the four-day week claim that it incentivises staff to do more in a shorter period of time. However, a previous study has suggested that it can in fact make employees less productive.

According to the Cambridge study, businesses generated 1.4 per cent more revenue at the end of a six-month trial than they did at the start.

But when scientists compared the six-month window with a distinct and comparable half-year span they found the four-day work week saw an increase in revenue of 34.5 per cent.

A total of 61 British companies adopted a four day week for the second half of 2022, with almost 3,000 staff involved.

The trial, which was coordinated by the campaign group 4 Day Week Global and think tank Autonomy, found improved happiness and lower stress levels among the participating staff.

At least 56 businesses said they would continue with the four-day week, with 18 saying they will adopt the new policy permanently. Only three opted to scrap the scheme at the end of the pilot.

Campaigners are calling for MPs to enshrine the right to a four-day week in law after hailing the latest results as a “major breakthrough”.

Campaigners and academics will present the findings to MPs at an event in the House of Commons today.

The event is being chaired by Labour MP and former shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Peter Dowd, who introduced the 32-Hour Working Week Bill in October.

The bill which would reduce the maximum working week from 48 hours to 32 hours, paving the way for a four-day week.

Calls for a shorter working week come even as the UK battles a productivity crisis that has left output languishing in recent years.

This has been driven by a slump in productivity in the public sector, where output per hour is 7.4 per cent below pre-pandemic levels.

A previous paper published last year by the US National Bureau of Economic Research found that workers on a four-day week earned less than demographically identical people in the same industry doing the same hours over a traditional timespace.

Daniel Hamermesh, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the paper’s authors, told news website TechTarget that the finding “suggests that there is some hit to productivity.”

In the Cambridge study, interviews of staff and employers suggested the 32-hour work weeks did not harm the financial viability of businesses.

Shorter meetings with clearer agendas, for example, were cited as an important change to make work hours more focused and efficient, as was the introduction of interruption-free ‘focus periods’, reforming email etiquette to reduce long chains, reviewed production processes, and more effective handovers.

However, some staff raised concerns over the more concentrated working pattern. Some said intensifying workloads were a concern, while some people in creative industries bemoaned the loss of unstructured chit-chat which they claim is when many ideas are generated.

The results are the latest from the “4 Day Week Global” initiative. Joe Ryle, director of the 4 Day Week Campaign, hailed the new data as a “major breakthrough moment”.

He said: “Across a wide variety of different sectors of the economy, these incredible results show that the four-day week with no loss of pay really works.

“Surely the time has now come to begin rolling it out across the country.”

Each participating company designed its own schedule to cut work hours by 20 per cent in order to best meet the demands of the business.

A three-day weekend with Friday off was the most popular option, but other companies staggered shorter days across a week, or even several months.

Participating organisations came from a wide range of sectors, including financial service providers, animation studios, a local fish-and-chip shop, restaurants and marketing firms.

The scientists at the University of Cambridge, the University College Dublin and Boston College discovered that the number of sick days dropped from two days per employee per month, on average, down to 0.7, a decline of 65 per cent.

The number of people leaving the companies also dropped by more than half, with a 57 per cent reduction in the rate of resignations in the same company during the four-day week trial compared to a comparative time frame.

Self-reported levels of staff burnout was down 71 per cent, more than a third of employees said they were less stressed and 60 per cent of staff said the extra day of free time found it easier to combine their job with care responsibilities.

Tending to “life admin” was what most employees said they dedicated their extra day off work to, which enabled them to have a traditional two-day weekend dedicated to leisure activities and not chores or arduous personal errands.

David Frayne, a research associate at the University of Cambridge who was involved in the work, said: “We feel really encouraged by the results, which showed the many ways companies were turning the four-day week from a dream into realistic policy, with multiple benefits.”

Brendan Burchell, professor of social sciences at University of Cambridge and the leader of the study, said: “When we ask employers, a lot of them are convinced the four-day week is going to happen.

“It has been uplifting for me personally, just talking to so many upbeat people over the last six months. A four-day week means a better working life and family life for so many people.”