A new study provides answers
In an essay published in 1930, British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that, a hundred years later, technological progress would have replaced so much of human labor that we would be working only 15 hours a week—or not at all.
Nearly a century later, this vision is still far from becoming a reality.
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The four-day workweek first emerged as a concrete solution during the energy crisis of the 1970s. However, the idea really gained momentum when the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global reevaluation of how and where we work.
Today, interest in this way of organizing work is growing for other reasons as well.
The war in Iran, which is disrupting fuel supplies, is reigniting calls to reduce commuting. Unions are demanding shorter work hours.
Finally, OpenAI, a company specializing in artificial intelligence, called on employers to experiment with a four-day workweek in order to better redistribute the productivity gains expected from artificial intelligence (AI).
The new study by Professor of Management John L. Hopkins, published in the journal *Humanities and Social Sciences Communications* (part of the Nature group), examines the experience of 15 Australian companies that adopted the four-day workweek.
Fourteen of them chose to maintain this model.
None reported a decline in productivity.
The study
John L. Hopkins, Professor of Management, and his research team studied 15 companies that had officially experimented with the four-day workweek according to the “100:80:100” model.
This model is based on a simple principle: employees retain 100% of their salary while working only 80% of their usual hours, provided they maintain 100% of their productivity level.
According to an article by Hopkins in The Conversation, they conducted interviews with the key decision-makers at these companies, those who had supported the four-day workweek program and played a central role in its design and implementation.
The aim was to understand what had motivated these companies to adopt this model, what benefits and challenges they had encountered, and its overall impact on their productivity and performance.
The companies studied spanned a wide range of sectors, ranging from logistics and real estate management to healthcare and publishing.
About half were small businesses with two to 18 employees, while the rest were medium-sized businesses employing up to 85 people.
Why did these companies decide to take the plunge?
The four-day workweek is often presented as a way to improve productivity. However, among the 15 companies, six reported that their main motivation was primarily to combat burnout.
In the study, the CEO of a medium-sized health technology company emphasized the importance of maintaining a work-life balance and implementing strategies to prevent burnoutfor employees.
According to her, the key indicators for evaluating the success of the four-day workweek were the employee turnover rate, unjustified absences, as well as the number of sick days or days of absence related to mental health and attributable to occupational burnout.
Another executive, the head of a medium-sized company in the financial sector, summarizes her approach as follows:
“We felt it was somewhat hypocritical to encourage our customers to live better every day if we ourselves did not apply these principles within our own company.”
The Results
During the interviews, which were conducted from early 2023 through late 2024, 14 of the 15 participating companies continued to implement the “100:80:100” model, either by extending the pilot phase or by adopting it permanently.
Some acknowledged that they were still in the early stages of the experiment. In contrast, one of them had already been operating under this model for nearly eight years.
Only one company ultimately abandoned the four-day workweek. However, it explained that the context had greatly influenced this decision, as the experiment coincided with a period of major changes within the organization.
Regarding productivity, six of the participating companies reported that it had increased since the introduction of the four-day workweek.
The rest considered it to have remained generally stable.
It is worth noting that none reported a decrease in productivity related to this new work arrangement.
These assessments were based on metrics selected by each company: revenue, profits, adherence to project delivery deadlines, and the Net Promoter Score, a metric that measures customer satisfaction and loyalty.
When asked to provide an overall assessment of their experience, the companies gave the model an average rating of 8.5 out of 10.
Limitations and Lessons Learned
Our study has several limitations. First, the “100:80:100” model analyzed is still relatively new, which explains the limited number of Australian companies that could be studied.
The research team plans to revisit the same companies in the coming years to assess whether this work organization is sustainable in the long term.
It should also be noted that most of the respondents had played a key role in implementing the four-day workweek. Their responses may therefore reflect a certain bias in favor of this experiment.
Despite these reservations, as burnout increases and the expected productivity gains from artificial intelligence raise questions about their distribution, the four-day workweek emerges as a serious alternative worth exploring.
Source: In.gr
