A new study concluded that a four-day work week significantly improved workers’ well-being. There were lower burnout rates, better mental health and greater job satisfaction. But before implementing it, it is necessary to find intelligent ways to work.
In recent years, several countries have been experimenting and adopt the four -day work week.
One, driven by Boston College, analyzed the impact of adopting a four-day working week without reduced wages on workers’ welfare.
The study focused on 2896 workers from 141 companies in six countries: US, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. These companies were compared with 12 control companies that, on the contrary, did not implement the four -day week.
Smarter ways to work
As detailed to, the nearly 3000 workers were asked before and after a six -month experimental period of working hours.
The companies they worked on had reorganized workflows to Reduce unnecessary tasksas meetings, allowing employees to work 80% of their original time for 100% of their salary.
Furthermore, There was no obligatory format. Companies chose their own way to reduce hours, which meant employees did not always work in a rigorous four -day week.
The investigators then measured the well-being related to work, including exhaustion and job satisfaction; mental and physical health; and mediators such as working capacity, labor requirements, schedule control, work support, sleep quality, fatigue and exercise frequency.
They found that, in the intervention group, the average work week descended from about 39 hours to 34 hours. The hours of the control group remained unchanged (about 39 to 40 hours a week).
Compared to the control group, workers who worked four days a week presented:
- Reduction of exhaustion;
- greater job satisfaction;
- an improvement in mental health;
- Significant gains in physical health.
In the end, in general, the larger reductions in personal work hours were equivalent to higher improvements in the well-beingr.
3 key mediators
There is 3 key mediators that explain much of the registered benefits.
One of them was the Increased work capacitywhich reflects the ability people feel in the job.
The second was the decreased sleep problems.
And the third was the decrease in fatigue.
Other factors that contributed to this effect were slight gains in the control of schedules, physical exercise and support at work. The perception of labor demands, for example, decreased at an individual level, but increased at the company, possibly due to more intense work days.
Use intelligence (ours)
“The results of the investigation of the last decade have been generally positive about the effectiveness of a four-day working week with full salary for workers’ well-being and company performance,” he told New Atlas, Dougal SutherlandClinical Psychologist in New Zealand.
“This study establishes a new pattern, by concluding, through a large sample, that workers’ well-being improved over a period of six months when working hours was reduced, which is partly explained by increasing productivity, sleep and energy of people,” he says.
How are you reorganization of working hoursthe companies started to Find smarter ways to workrationalizing processes and reducing unnecessary meetings or tasks.
On the contrary, “it would be unlikely to reduce working hours without any support at the workplace to produce the same results,” says Sutherland.
One of the limitations of this study is that researchers only made six months of workers observation. In these studies, longer analyzes are recommended.
But regardless of limitations, the results suggest that a four -day working week without loss of performance is the future to improve workers’ well-beingespecially mental health and job satisfaction.
