Study shows health benefits of a four-day work week

Four-day work weeks, with no pay reductions, can improve the mental and physical health of workers.

Researchers from the US, Ireland and the UK published a study in the Nature Human Behaviour Journal that showed employees could maintain their output due to the improved working environment, but they also experienced better sleep and less tiredness.

Researchers conducted a six-month study involving 141 organizations in Australia, Canada Ireland, New Zealand UK and US. The trial involved almost 2,900 workers.

The researchers found that both individual and company-level reductions of hours were correlated with improved wellbeing. The conclusion was that “income-preserving, four-day weeks” were an effective intervention for improving workforce wellbeing.

Wen Fan, professor of Sociology at Boston College, who is the lead author, stated: “When workers are trying to achieve the same productivity they may work very quickly to complete the task, and their well-being could actually worsen. But that’s what we didn’t find.

The companies in the trial had eight weeks to restructure the workflow to maintain productivity of 80%.

Before the trial began, employees were asked a series questions like “Does work frustrate or annoy you?” as well as how they felt regarding their mental health. At the end of trial, the same questions were posed.

Employee wellbeing was assessed before and after the six month experiment against four benchmarks – burnout, job satisfaction and overall psychological well-being.

The sample was compared to 285 employees from 12 companies who did not use a reduced work week.

All employees who had their hours reduced saw health benefits, including a higher level of job satisfaction and fewer feelings of burnout. The greatest benefits were seen by those whose hours of work were reduced to eight hours.

The researchers noted that the study was limited by the fact that the participants were all volunteers and often small business owners in English-speaking nations, which meant that the sample was not as randomised as they would have liked.

Wen noted that the reduction of workweeks and commuter hours would also have positive effects on the environment. Nine out of 10 companies signed up to keep a four-day work week after the trial.

The 4 Day Week Foundation also completed a pilot that was conducted in the UK with 17 companies participating. All of them continued to operate on the same basis.

Two-thirds of 1,000 workers said that they experienced a reduction in burnout. In addition, two out of five reported an improvement in mental health. Almost half felt happier with their lives.

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