📅 The four-day working week increases both well-being and productivity

33 companies around the world have during six months tested to let the employees work four days a week with maintained salary.

The result was that revenues increased by eight percent while sick leave decreased, reports Bloomberg.

The companies rated the experiment 9 out of 10 and all 33 companies intend to continue with the four-day week even after the test period.

The pilot study is part of the non-profit organization 4 Day Week's work to investigate how a four-day week affects companies and employees. During the study, the companies also saw other benefits of the four-day week.

“We saw much greater commitment among the employees than we had ever seen before. In addition, we have retained more employees while being able to find new employees faster and cheaper, which are probably the three biggest factors in our ability to increase our productivity", says Jon Leland, chief strategy officer at Kickstarter which was one of the companies in the test" in a comment to Bloomberg.

The employees were also satisfied. 97 percent of all employees in the companies that took part in the test now want to continue with the four-day week. Among the benefits, the employees mention less stress, lower risk of burnout, less anxiety and fatigue and better sleep.

They also did not have to work more during the four days to catch up with work. Before the trial began, the companies organized workshops where the employees went through their work to identify unnecessary and inefficient tasks to streamline or eliminate them.

Read the entire study here.