One day, years from now, I will relish the moment I get to sit around a campfire telling tales of the Before Times: Our cars ran on dinosaur bones; we had to charge our phones every night, and for a long time they didn't even connect to the internet (that, kids, is how we used to refer to the network that is now the connective tissue of everything you own); we journeyed for miles, five days a week, to spend a third of our life inside vast "offices" that kept great machine capitalism humming.
I can already hear their horrified gasps. Five days? In a row?
Ah, children. Things were different in my day…
Here's the thing: Am I exaggerating here? Sure. But only a little. By now, there's just so much evidence that the idea of the five-day workweek is a prison we've created for ourselves and there is no compelling reason to keep it going.
See here: In yet another win for advocates of the four-day week, a new study shows that the four-day week is actually good for business.
Organizers behind the pilot program studied 33 companies, mostly in the US and Ireland, with a combined 903 workers, for six months. The companies shifted from standard 40-hour weeks to 32-hour weeks over four days, with no reduction in pay. And — surprise! — everyone loved it. Even the bosses. Here's what they found out from the 27 companies that responded to the survey:
- Not one of the companies said they wanted to go back to the longer week. (The vast majority said they planned to keep it going, while a few said they hadn't made a decision but were leaning toward keeping the new schedule.)
- The companies rated their overall experience 9 out of 10, based on productivity and performance.
- Workers reported lower levels of stress, fatigue, insomnia and burnout.
- It was also good for the bottom line: Average revenue rose 38% when compared with the same period last year.
- 97% of workers said they want to continue the four-day schedule.
- 13% said that no amount of money would induce them to go back to a five-day schedule.
The research was a joint project between 4 Day Week Global, a nonprofit organization, and researchers at Boston College, University College Dublin and Cambridge University.
Did the shorter week mean staffers were frantically scrambling to pack the work in?
Nope. According to Juliet Schor, the trial's lead researcher, employees did not report an increase in the intensity of their work.
One of the companies that participated in the trial was Kickstarter, the crowdfunding site. For them, the 4-day week was a win-win.
"Staff are more focused, more engaged and more dedicated, helping us hit our goals better than before," said John Leland, Kickstarter's chief strategy officer.
And trust me, I can already feel the pushback brewing out there. We have too much work; this would never fly at my office; OK Allison, we get it, you're a Millennial who doesn't want to work hard ... I hear all of that!
I appreciate that none of this could happen overnight. Some industries would be harder to transition than others. But consider that the two-day weekend was itself somewhat radical in the 1800s, and it didn't become standard in the United States until the 1930s. And you know why it worked so well? People who aren't toiling away at work tend to spend their free time shopping, feeding that crucial engine of economic growth.
For more on another, massive four-day week trial taking place in the UK, check out my colleague Anna Cooban's reporting.
