How Does a Four-Day Work Week Feel?

In the world’s largest trial of a four-day work week, including over a dozen companies and nearly 3,000 workers in the United Kingdom, “a majority of supervisors and employees liked it so much they’ve decided to keep the arrangement. In fact, 15 percent of the employees who participated said ‘no amount of money’ would convince them to go back to working five days a week,” according to the Washington Post, which added:

At the end of the experiment, employees reported a variety of benefits related to their sleep, stress levels, personal lives and mental health, according to results published Tuesday. Companies’ revenue ‘stayed broadly the same’ during the six-month trial, but rose 35 percent on average when compared with a similar period from previous years. Resignations decreased.

Perhaps the benefits are due in part to having uninterrupted time for life's pleasures. In her essay included in the Exchange Essentials on “Fostering Positive Organizational Culture,” author Mary Pipher suggests:

We experience our deepest happiness when we connect to ancient human pleasures. Communal meals, campfires, watching a thunderstorm, snuggling with children, and storytelling are some of our primal pleasures. Dipping our toes in a lake, walking through a forest or observing a meteor shower help us keep our lives in perspective; we are a small part of something vast and universal.

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