Benefits
A robust demonstration of the effects of the four-day workweek: from June to December 2022, 61 UK companies and around 2,900 workers took place in the world’s largest four-day workweek experiment to date. While working hours were decreased, pay for all employees was maintained at 100%.
At the conclusion of the experiment, 92% of the companies opted to continue the four-day week.
The UK experiment echoes the findings of other studies and articles that demonstrate the variety of evidence-based benefits that a four-day workweek offers:
Revenue¹
Average change in companies’ revenue over the course of the study +1.4%
Average change in companies’ revenue compared to a prior comparable period +35%
Workload & productivity¹
Percent of employees reporting:
Employee health & well-being¹
Change in number of sick and personal days taken -65%
Percent of employees reporting:
Employee investment & retention¹
Change in number of staff resignations compared to a prior comparable period -57%
Percent of employees reporting:
Gender equity
Women tend to be their family’s primary caregiver more often than men do, and more often experience career disruption as a result.
Percent saying they have _____ in order to care for a child or family member:²
According to the Department of Labor, in the first seven months of the COVID-19 pandemic, women left the workforce at four times the rate of men. Earlier research found that while women made up just 43% of the workforce, they had experienced 56% of COVID-related job losses.³
15% of young women with children are not working because of childcare, compared to 2% of men. Young women living with children are six times more likely than men to be out of work because of childcare.⁴
A four-day workweek helps permit women to balance professional and family demands, which supports women’s participation in the workforce and promotes both social justice and economic development.
Climate
Research has found that a 10% reduction in work hours corresponds to an 8.6% decrease in carbon footprint, while a 25% reduction in work hours corresponds to a 21.5% carbon footprint decrease.⁵
For a company of 100 employees, each driving the national average daily commute of 18 miles, moving from five days in the office to four would result in an annual decrease of around 41 tons of commute-related carbon dioxide emissions. That’s the equivalent of the CO₂ absorbed in a year by nearly 1,800 mature trees.⁶