Concrete argument for the 4-day week!

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s. – “I dream four days a week, but I don’t dare talk to senior management about it because I know they are convinced that it’s just something exciting for startups…» – Eve

ANSWER – Dear Eve, you and I are the same, it seems to me: we swear only by verified and verifiable facts, hard facts, in short, scientific facts. I have good news for you: I recently conducted a reliable and powerful experiment aimed at evaluating the potential positive and negative effects of four days a week; The results show beyond any doubt that there is an advantage to adopting the four-day week.

The experiment was conducted by the organization 4 days of a global weekIts goal is to promote it four days a week and help companies that want to move to it. Of course, not to be accused of bias in its experiment, the New Zealand organization teamed up with researchers from Harvard Business School, Oxford University and the University of Pennsylvania.

In February 2022, 33 companies from six different countries switched to working four days a week for six months. Note that when we talk about four days a week, we are actually talking about 32 hours a week: the important thing is to reduce the workload, not to do the same thing as before, but in fewer hours. Because this would be stressful for the workers, not to mention downright stressful.

The results are crisp and clear:

Gains in well-being and health. The four-day work week has brought “significant improvements” in terms of workers’ “well-being” and “life satisfaction”. Also note another nice and interesting improvement, namely, “workers sleep”.

Financial gain. For the 16 participating companies that agreed to disclose financial statements, combined revenue, weighted by volume, rose 8.14%. This is an amazing leap. To understand it well, it is enough to know that this increase in income corresponds to an increase in income for some companies of 40% higher than the increase witnessed during the same period in the previous year.

Where do these financial gains come from? Mainly from the increased productivity recorded among workers. This is in line with the findings of a 2019 study conducted by researchers from Henley Business School which revealed that two-thirds of companies that adopted a four-day work week saw an increase in the productivity of their workers.

– There is no significant negative effect. The participating companies did not report any specific negative impact related to the four days of the week. Almost all of the workers participating in the experiment declared that they wanted to finally adopt the four-day week. As for the CEOs and other managers, they all acknowledged the “significant” benefits of the four-day week and indicated that they were willing to consider adopting it permanently.

There you are, Eve. Thanks to the four-day week, workers are happier and more productive, which translates to better financial conditions for the company. What else?