More than half of US employers ready to try four-day workweek

More than half of American employers offer a four-day workweek, or plan to, according to a survey released Tuesday. 

A poll of 976 business leaders by ResumeBuilder.com, the job-seekers website, found that 20 percent of employers already have a four-day workweek. Another 41 percent said they plan to implement a four-day week, at least on a trial basis. 

American employers have experimented with a four-day workweek over the decades, typically in times of recession. But the idea has gained traction in recent years.  

If a four-day week ever becomes standard, it would mark the biggest change to the national work schedule since the five-day workweek, adopted by automaker Henry Ford in 1926.  

We can’t say, however, that the four-day workweek would rank as the most profound change to the American workplace, not even in the last three years. That distinction probably goes to remote work, a movement that exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic and shows no signs of abating. 

Proponents of the four-day week contend that companies can trim a full day from the week without a loss of productivity.  

A trial of the four-day workweek in Iceland in the 2010s yielded “phenomenal results, like less stress, lower work-family conflicts, more energy levels,” said Juliet Schor, a Boston College researcher, in a well-circulated TED podcast. “Productivity stays the same or gets better. Doesn’t cost anything.” 

Another trial of the four-day week, last year in the United Kingdom, found increased job satisfaction and work-life balance, superior products, better customer service and reduced stress, sick days and absences, by one account.  

History suggests, though, that it may not be so simple to compress five days’ work into four. 

Volkswagen adopted a four-day workweek in 1993, with shorter hours and less pay, amid a downturn in the auto industry. For many workers, the four-day week didn’t feel much shorter. 

“They started to take work home with them,” said Iwan Barankay, an associate professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “They were still under pressure to get work done, and they were doing it on their own time.” 

With as much as half of America’s white-collar work now happening at home, Barankay believes a four-day week might increase pressure on workers to toil on their own time. 

“People still, in the end, will be evaluated for performance,” he said. “And if they feel they can’t get the work done in four days, some of it will bleed into Fridays.” 

In the U.K. pilot, shortening the workweek forced employers to take a close look at how workers actually spent their time. Employees frittered away parts of the day checking Facebook, scanning headlines and planning vacations. But slack time, as it turns out, was not the biggest drag on productivity.  

The top time-suck was meetings. To make workers more productive in a four-day week, researchers say, employers need to hold fewer of them. 

“Meetings are the No. 1 thing that the companies get control over in order to make this work,” Schor said, in her TED interview. “How many meetings are there? How long do they last? How many people go to them? How much time do you have to prepare for them?” 

Most workers love the idea of a four-day workweek. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll this spring found that 75 percent of us would rather work four 10-hour days than five eight-hour days. 

But advocates are pushing for eight-hour days, citing evidence that employees will do the same amount of work in fewer hours. By the same argument, proponents say workers should earn the same pay for a four-day week as for a five-day week.  

Pay matters. In the WaPo-Ipsos poll, 73 percent of respondents said they would rather work five days with more pay than four days with less. 

Most U.S. companies still favor the five-day week. Advocates are pushing for a large-scale pilot of the four-day workweek in America, with employers agreeing to eight fewer hours of weekly work at the same weekly pay. 

The new ResumeBuilder survey suggests corporate America is warming to the idea. Roughly three in 10 U.S. employers will offer a four-day workweek by year’s end, the survey found. 

Among the companies that already offer four-day workweeks, most said the four-day week has helped them compete for top talent. A majority also said the four-day schedule has boosted profitability.  

Some firms said they expect employees to work the same hours in a four-day week as in five days, a proposition that has met with objections from labor leaders concerned about long hours. A few employers said they had reduced paid leave for workers with a shorter week. 

The typical firm with a four-day week offers the reduced schedule to most employees, but not all, depending on work location, level of responsibility, performance and other factors. 

Lawmakers in several U.S. states have proposed four-day or 32-hour workweeks or pilot programs. 

But change comes slowly to the American workforce. The last real revision to the workweek arrived with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which set the standard workweek at 44 hours, a figure adjusted downward to 40 hours in a 1940 amendment.     

“The question here is whether this can be rolled out to larger companies,” Barankay said of the four-day week. “What does it mean if you need your workforce to do more work?”