I’ve long been a believer in the benefits of the four-day working week.
The opportunities to both the individual and the organisation are plain to me, and are supported by research. In 2022 a six-month trial in the UK involving 61 companies saw evidence that productivity improved, as did staff wellbeing and staff turnover rates. Recruitment also proved easier. Many other studies have reached similar conclusions.
And yet, culturally, many individuals and organisations remain resistant to the idea. “I see the benefits…” they say with their heads, “but it couldn’t possibly work in my case” they conclude with their gut. There is a deep-seated, powerful emotional bond with tradition and the status quo that is hard to overcome with mere facts.
I first started working a four-day week almost 10 years ago, and I have lived the benefits first hand.
Early in my career, desperate to impress, I worked very long hours, never understanding the inverse relationship between hours worked and productivity. And the longer I worked in this ineffectual manner, the greater the toll it took on my physical and mental health.
It took a crisis for me to re-evaluate my position. It took outside help for me to gain perspective on the way I was working, and to try a different approach.
This was a scary step; it would involve reducing my salary (I chose to reduce my working hours from 40 to 32, rather than do 5 days’ hours in 4). It would involve doing something outside the norm in my organisation, and potentially open me up to greater scrutiny. There was risk.
And yet the benefits were apparent almost immediately. Not only in my energy levels and mental wellbeing. The most notable change was in the way I prioritised; with reduced hours, I was forced to think harder about what mattered most, and discard the unimportant. As a result of being better rested and more focused, I found I was able to work harder, faster and smarter.
And I had a day off, to boot! A day to rest, to recharge, to be in nature, to do anything I wanted with. Fertile ground, in which new things might grow. In time, that day gave birth to a new passion for coaching.
It is interesting to note that of those 61 companies that took part in the six-month trial of the four-day working week, 89% were still running it a year later, and 51% had made the change permanent. Not surprising, given that on average employees in the UK work the longest hours in Europe, whilst productivity is around 20% below that of France and Germany. Something needs to change.
It is always easier to stay with what we know. What we find familiar.
But if we take a chance, and explore where change might lead us, the benefits can be profound.
If you were given a whole day a week to do with as you pleased, what might grow from it?
What chance would you take, if the fear of change was gone?
What outside help will you seek to make a change?
