The UK is currently testing the four-day week. For six months, the 3,300 employees participating in this trial will work one less day per week, while maintaining the same salary. A large-scale project that is attracting more and more countries. Overview.
The United Kingdom
From June to December 2022, employees from 70 different companies will only work four days a week, earning the same salary. According to the British newspaper “The Guardian”, this large-scale test is the largest in the world. The objective of the project is to study the impact of this model on the economy and on employees, while employers are having difficulty recruiting.
Banking establishments, IT, retail and even a beer brewery: all trades are concerned. At the head of a company specializing in eco-consulting, Aaron Grainger draws a positive assessment of the experience for the moment: “We have been thinking about the four-day week for about 4 years, mainly to improve the well-being of our employees. People tend to work long hours in our sector and we wanted to rectify that”, he explained Thursday in the program Tout un monde de RTS-La1ère.
Iceland
Iceland is one of the pioneering countries in this area. Thus, between 2015 and 2019, 2,500 Icelanders, or 1% of the population, took part in an experiment to reduce working hours. They were offered to work 35 hours a week over four days, instead of 40 over five days, with the same salary at the end of the month.
The idea was launched by Reykjavik City Hall and the Icelandic government. And the results of the experiment turned out to be quite promising: employee productivity did not change and employee well-being improved.
The four-day week would also have allowed employees to achieve a better work-life balance. However, these schedule changes were not universally accepted: many executives were unable to reduce their hours due to work overload.
>> Listen to the subject of La Matinale:
Belgium
In Belgium, the four-day week is possible on a voluntary basis and if the employer authorizes it. If he refuses it, he will have to justify his decision. Moreover, unlike in other countries, it is not accompanied by a reduction in working time.
People who want to can therefore work more hours a day in exchange for an extra day off during the week. A method that allows them to perform a full-time job in four days. “Employees will therefore be able to work nine and a half hours over four days, instead of eight hours over five”, explains the newspaper The world.
New Zealand
The country’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern paved the way for the four-day week in May 2020. A way, according to the Prime Minister, to revive the country’s economy after the Covid-19 crisis, in particular the tourism sector .
The very positive results of the company Perpetual Guardian, which adopted this model in 2018, strongly inspired the New Zealand government. Indeed, the results of this experiment have proved instructive: on a sample of 240 employees, weekly productivity remained the same, implying better hourly productivity.
The stress level went from 45% to 38%. Work-life balance has also improved.
Japan
In the Land of the Rising Sun, known for its overtime culture, the 4-day week model is also gaining ground. “A situation that was once unthinkable in a country whose post-war prosperity depended on a workforce willing to sacrifice family life for the good of business,” analyzes the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun.
This movement is encouraged by an economic and fiscal reform of the government. The Covid-19 pandemic and the difficulty for companies to recruit staff is also not unrelated to this decision.
Among the companies that have opted for this model are Panasonic and the Hitachi group. The American firm Microsoft also took the plunge, in summer 2019, with its 2,300 Japanese employees. Result: according to data provided by Microsoft, employee productivity increased by 40%.
Spain
As part of a pilot project, no less than 200 volunteer Spanish companies will test the four-day week this year. The experiment, which represents a budget of 50 million euros, should last three years. Employees will work 32 hours a week, instead of the current 40, with no drop in pay.
This experiment follows a proposal by the radical left parliamentary group Más País in January 2021.
At the end of the test, the results will be compared with the productivity of other companies which have, for their part, kept the five-day week.
>> Listen to the subject of La Matinale:
Hélène Krähenbühl