"Doing Housework on Fridays and Enjoying the Weekend"… UK Two Months into '4-Day Workweek' Experiment, Initial Evaluation Positive

If Productivity Is Maintained at 100%, 4-Day Workweek Without Wage Cuts
Initial Trials Faced Errors... "If Productivity Drops, Will Return to 5-Day Workweek"

Participants in the four-day workweek experiment underway in the UK have been found to have high satisfaction levels. The photo shows office workers moving to have lunch in Myeongdong, Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunju Park] "The new normal with a 4-day workweek is astonishing."

Lisa Gilbert, who works in loan services at a bank in southwest England, described the 4-day workweek this way. She said, "Being able to do household chores on (the holiday) Friday allows me to enjoy the weekend," adding, "(The 4-day workweek) is a life-changing shift."

Since early June, the UK has been experimenting with a 4-day workweek at about 70 companies, including banks, investment firms, and hospitals. According to CNN Business on the 1st (local time), employee satisfaction with this experiment has been reported as high.

This experiment, planned by the nonprofit organization '4 Day Week Global' along with researchers from Oxford, Cambridge, and Boston universities, aims to determine whether reducing working hours to 80% can maintain productivity and wages at 100% of the previous levels.

Participants work 4 days a week without any pay cuts, under the promise of maintaining 100% of their previous productivity. The researchers are measuring the impact of the 4-day workweek on productivity, gender equality, work environment, and employee welfare, while companies will decide whether to continue the 4-day workweek by the end of November.

CNN Business reported that there were some trial-and-error moments in the early stages of the 4-day workweek experiment. Samantha Logie, an executive at a London PR agency, said, "The first two weeks were really a mess," and added, "I thought deciding to do the 4-day workweek was a big mistake."

However, Logie's team later introduced measures to focus on work and reduce unnecessary time, such as limiting internal meetings to under 5 minutes and client meetings to under 30 minutes. Logie explained, "By the fourth week of the experiment, work was back to my pace," but also noted, "If productivity drops during the 6-month experiment, we are open to returning to the 5-day workweek."

Similar 4-day workweek experiments were previously conducted in Iceland. From 2015 to 2019, Iceland ran two rounds of 4-day workweek trials involving about 2,500 public sector workers. The results showed that productivity was maintained while employee welfare improved somewhat.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.