Four day week to remain in place after successful trial
Almost 3,000 workers are set to live the dream as their companies have chosen to continue four-day working weeks after a successful six-month trial.
There's really no better scenario than working one less day for the same amount of pay and that's exactly what more than 60 companies did in the trial last year.
Organisations included everything from a brewery to a fish and chip shop, software developers to recruitment firms, all of which were guided by the non-profit 4 Day Week Global, the UK’s 4 Day Week Campaign and think-tank Autonomy.
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From June to December, staff had their working days reduced without any loss of pay in an attempt to find out the benefits of 'reduced-hour, output-focused working'.
Faye Johnson-Smith, a supervisor for Citizen Advice in Gateshead, was among those who took part in the trial, and was granted every Wednesday off throughout the six months.
Speaking to the BBC, Johnson-Smith said the extra day gave her time to 'recover and recuperate', allowing her to return to work on Thursday 'ready to hit the ground running'.
She claimed to achieve just as much, if not more, work in four days than she did in five, while her colleague, Bethany Lawson, said her team was easier to manage on a four-day week, in turn giving her more of her own time back to work.
Lawson also found she can push herself a little bit further after a day to 'reset'.
They weren't the only two to find benefits in the trial, and after it came to an end last year 4 Day Week Global announced that 91 percent of the companies involved are 'definitely continuing or planning to continue', while a further 4 percent are 'leaning towards continuing'.
Only 4 percent of participants have decided they are definitely not continuing.
Companies involved in the trial rated their overall experience an average of 8.5/10, with business productivity and business performance each scoring 7.5/10.
Employers will need to see productivity gains in order for a four-day week on full pay to be realistic for the economy, but the organisers of the trial noted that when compared with similar periods from the previous year, revenue rose by 35 percent.
Charlotte Lockhart, co-founder and Managing Director of 4 Day Week Global, praised the results of the trial and explained the impacts they will have going forward, saying: “Our team is delighted to be expanding the arguments in favour of a 4 day week today with this new world-class academic research, and we look forward to adding our Australasian pilot results to this data set in the coming weeks and our European, South African, Brazilian and North American results in the coming months."
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Emily Brown