UK companies to a trial four-day workweek

More than 3000 employees from 60 organisations will participate in a six-month coordinated trial of a four-day work week in the United Kingdom, making it the world's largest pilot plant for a reduced work week to date.

From June to December 2022, the trial, organised by 4 Day Week Global in corporation with think tank Autonomy and the 4 Day Week UK Campaign, would see all 60 organisations – including several IT firms – embrace a shorter working week with no pay loss.

Throughout the UK experiment, researchers from Cambridge University, Oxford University, and Boston College will collaborate with participating organisations to assess the effects of working four days in various areas, including employee productivity and welfare, the environment, and gender equality.

Managers and executives are increasingly adopting a new work paradigm that emphasises the quality of outputs rather than the number of hours worked. Workers have different expectations about what makes a healthy work-life balance due to the epidemic.

Deeply ingrained societal and cultural conventions can often be dislodged only by a major disruptor. Following the Covid-19 induced flexible operational revolution, this is what we're witnessing with the typical five-day work week. Those who believe we can go back to the way things were 2 years back are dreaming — the four-day week is an idea that has finally come to fruition.

Stemettes, a social venture that assists girls and young women pursue professions in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, is one of the tech-related firms participating in the study (STEM).

Because of the vast array of digital tools available, the IT industry, in particular, is well-positioned to gain from a four-day week, according to Imafidon. Working a four-day work week will only be conceivable for them because of our tech-savvy [workers] and our use of digital tools, and the way we can automate some tasks or create certain processes.

According to Kemp, the four-day week also allowed staff to operate more "restricted and concentrated". It forces us to create specific objectives and guarantee that they are met within a more constrained time frame and set of actions. We've gotten much more diligent in assessing outcomes than just the number of hours done.

We hope for more happiness, work satisfaction, and a stress reduction - more time for relaxation is vital [and should mean] less burnout. You need to give your brain a break the same way you need to give your body a break.

We're wondering if this will also help us contribute and bring more creativity into the team, more invention, and more space for learning, development, and growth - all of which will enable us to achieve more with less.

The 4 Day Week Campaign's accreditation programme has now approved 78 organisations in the UK, including Autonomy. Formedix, a supplier of clinical trial software tool that automates the end-to-end clinical trial design and construction process for pharmaceutical companies, is one of these companies.

The corporation sent anonymous questionnaires to its employees to measure their reactions following the experiment. 100% of the employees indicated they wanted the four-day workweek to be permanent, and 89 per cent said it raised their job satisfaction, which is tremendous, and 94 per cent said it improved their work-life balance.