MIT Sloan Management Review Article on What Does the Four-Day Workweek Mean for the Future of Work?

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected people’s working lives, most recently advancing a shift toward flexible work arrangements and making ideas like a four-day workweek commonplace. Under these modified schedules, employees typically work four days and get a three-day weekend — with, it’s critical to note, no reduction in pay.

Advocates have long suggested that having employees work four days instead of five increases productivity, and the supporting evidence is indeed overwhelmingly positive. For example, last year in Iceland, researchers found that a four-day workweek without a pay cut improved workers’ well-being and productivity. And when parliamentary elections were being held in Scotland last year, first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s campaign included the promise of 10 million pounds for companies to pilot a four-day week, an experiment that’s currently underway. Ireland, too, will test out a four-day workweek for six months this year, and Spain has launched a three-year 32-hour workweek experiment as part of the country’s economic recovery from COVID-19.

About the Author

Ben Laker (@drbenlaker) is a professor of leadership at the University of Reading’s Henley Business School and coauthor of Too Proud to Lead: How Hubris Can Destroy Effective Leadership and What to Do About It (Bloomsbury, 2021).

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