The four-day work week, without salary reduction, improves the physical and mental health of workers and the economic health of companies, according to a study by the journal Nature Human Behaviour this Tuesday released.
The study was conducted with 2,896 workers who reduced their weekly working hours in 141 companies from six different countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States.
Among the 2,896 workers who reduced their working hours, researchers from the University of Boston and the University College Dublin constituted three groups: a group with a reduction of eight or more hours (and organized their working day in four business days); another group with a reduction of five to seven hours; and a third group with a reduction of one to four hours.
Researchers compared the health data of people who reduced their working hours, without salary cut, with data from 285 workers from 12 companies that had no reduction in working hours.
Researchers analyzed inquiries that were made to workers for six months and compared them with employment and health indicators (including exhaustion, labor satisfaction and mental and physical health) before and after experience.
The results revealed a clear conclusion: the four -day work weeks without reducing remuneration increases the work satisfaction and physical and mental health of their workers, who perform better, are less fatigued, report less health problems in general and, in particular, sleep much better.
Workers with a reduction of eight hours or more per week of work stated that they have experienced a greater reduction in exhaustion, better mental health and greater job satisfaction than those in the control group companies that did not reduce their working hours.
Workers who worked one to four hours a week and five to seven hours were beneficial effects of the same type that those who worked four days and eight hours: fewer sleep problems and fatigue levels and better individual work capacity. But these benefits were lower than those who worked four days (eight hours a week).
Researchers recall the potential of some of the initiatives being developed worldwide to reduce working hours due to their health and productivity benefits, such as the six -hour workday or a 20 % reduction in working time.
Also in Portugal was a pilot project to study the four-day week, which lasted six months. According to the results, almost all (95%) of the approximately four dozen companies that joined their experience as positive.
Workers marked gains in terms of the conciliation of personal, professional and family life.
More than 60% revealed that they spent more time with the family with the reduction of time.
The four -day week experience allowed an average of a reduction of 13.7% of the hours per week.
On the other hand, a study prepared by the Portuguese Industrial Industry and Industry Association (AIP-CCI) concluded that seven out of ten companies are against the implementation of the four-day week, especially in commerce, industry and construction, and 71% of those who agree that the measure should be optional.
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