Employees with shorter workweeks are more likely to experience positive health changes and better work fulfilment, and those improvements can provide workforces with job resources to accelerate professional and personal growth.
A new benchmark study from researchers at Boston College and University College Dublin found that reducing work hours can significantly improve employee wellbeing and job satisfaction. Additionally, this type of work reorganisation boosted employees’ confidence in their ability to perform well in their jobs.
The researchers analysed data from a six-month work reorganisation trial involving nearly 2,900 employees and more than 100 companies. Most study participants (94%) are based in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The findings were more pronounced in companies that implemented a four-day workweek or similar. Employees with an average weekly reduction of eight hours or more experienced larger gains in wellbeing-related outcomes, including better job satisfaction and mental health and lower amounts of burnout compared with employees without significant reductions to scheduled hours, the study said.
Reducing work hours could also improve productivity and self-management skills. Increases in perceived work ability, the study added, suggested that an organisation-wide reduction in hours can stimulate workers to “collectively adjust and optimise their workflows”, leading to improved job performance.
Furthermore, established improvements in sleep and fatigue management could also inflate the role of reduced work hours in encouraging positive lifestyle changes by promoting self-care practices to employees, the researchers hypothesised. The study discovered that schedule control and exercise regimes improved when employees reduced their workweek by at least eight hours.
Business as usual prevailed alongside reorganisation disruptions for leaders. A report focused on UK companies engaged in the four-day workweek pilot, from Boston College and the 4 Day Week Foundation, a UK-based advocacy organisation, found that all 17 participating organisations confirmed plans to continue with a four-day week (71%) or a nine-day fortnight (29%), and three organisations have already made this change permanent. Those organisations reported benefiting from a shorter workweek and were able to “maintain service levels and key performance indicators.”
Increased job demands were also offset by wellbeing benefits for UK workforces. Ninety-one per cent of nearly 1,000 workers involved in the UK pilot wanted to continue with a shorter workweek, despite registering an increase to the average workload and work pace during the trial period, the report said. Overall, 62% of employees said they had experienced a reduction in burnout symptoms.
Nevertheless, the four-day workweek’s ability to extinguish burnout culture is contingent. The Boston College and University College Dublin study observed divergent views on job demands, informed by employees’ perceived levels of autonomy at work:
“Larger reductions in company-wide hours often indicate broader restructuring, likely introducing new responsibilities and tighter deadlines, which may heighten demands,” the study said. “In contrast, employees who can reduce their own hours may adjust themselves to align with their new schedules or feel more empowered to manage their workload and time, resulting in decreased perceptions of job demands.”
Ultimately, four-day workweeks can lead to profound changes in the job experience itself, improving workers’ individual and collective sense of performing their jobs well, the research found. Notably, most workers surveyed worked an average of 40 hours per week before the trial, indicating that wellbeing benefits are not limited to employees traditionally working long hours.
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