How The Four-Day Workweek Could Change The Future Of Work

The idea of a four-day or shorter workweek is gaining momentum worldwide — a big thanks to the remote work boom during the Covid-19 pandemic.

A recent study from 4 Day Week Global, a nonprofit group that has been conducting four-day week pilot programs in several countries, found that employees expressed satisfaction with their overall productivity and performance.

"The idea of reducing work time has been around for quite some time," said Charlotte Lockhart, founder and managing director at 4 Day Week Global. "However, it is real now. We have thousands of companies around the world that are actually reducing work time in one way or another."

Shortening the workweek to four days isn't a good fit for every company, however. Alter Agents, a market research company, based in Los Angeles, found it didn't suit their employees.

"What happened after 10 weeks was that our most valuable metrics, which were employee health, and mental health, had declined in our [before and after] survey, " said Rebecca Brooks, CEO at Alter Agents. "There are a lot of reasons for that, but ultimately, the goal was to make our employees' lives easier, and we were making them more complicated."

Watch the video above to learn whether the four-day workweek is what working life will look like in the future.

Produced by: Anuz Thapa
Narration by: Jordan Smith
Supervising Producer: Jeff Morganteen
Graphics by: Jason Reginato, Christina Locopo, Mallory Brangan

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How The Four-Day Workweek Could Change The Future Of Work

[eligreg]

I fully support a 4 day work week and a 3 day weekend. I legit don’t feel like 2 days is enough for days off because usually I have to choose one of the days to relax and the other to get things done.

[FairBeautyEssentials]

I used to work 4 days / 10 hour shifts Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Man-oh-man was it the best!!! I didn’t have any worries or fears of having to use PTO or take time off of work just to go to doctors appointments during the weekday.

[lessthantom]

I’m all for a 4 day work week. As a society that is progressing with technology this is how it should be and should have been a long time ago.

[CardinalSynth]

As a society, we need this more than we realize

[BigO]

My company has everyone work a uniform 4 day workweek with fridays as a part of the weekend. The longer days can sometimes drag (especially in the shorter winter days) but getting three full days to myself to travel, shop, or rest is 100% worth it.

[sa]

My employees work 4 days a week since the beginning of the pandemic, they love it, I love it, business is doing great.

[janradtke]

There was a time when a 5-day workweek was considered impossible.

[KingTriton]

I'm all for a four day work week.

[JOGA_Wills]

The better question is how impractical is the 5 day work week

[KingDavid-jjtk]

nice i personally feel like a four day week will be beneficial not only to the employees but also the employers great content on your channel, I’m 53 and my wife and I reached $1M net worth in 2017, five years later it’s $2.4M. Our yearly salary is a little over $100K. We drive older cars, cook at home, eat leftovers, and have 2 in college. We saved for college and our boys help by working. They will graduate debt free.

[kevingreen]

I worked 4 10 hour days for about 3 years. It was hard at first but I eventually got used to it, and I actually liked after awhile. Plus, having a 3 day weekend I loved

[willcookmakeup]

This really should be implemented as soon as possible. We are way overworked, and that's saying something when considering the labor intensive jobs people around the world in less developed countries have to do everyday 7 days a week with no breaks.

[ronkirk]

I'm 72 and when I saw that a 4 day work week wasn't going to happen during my lifetime, I chose a short 20 year working career and retired early including 10 years of retirement when I was 35 instead of living my whole life as a wage slave. The part (5 years) of my career I enjoyed the most was going to sea as a ship's engineer because after 3 months at sea, I had 3 months off to play and travel. Life is too short to give away any more than you have to earning a living.

[noirefit]

I’m setting my life up to only work 3-4 days. I don’t want to just work, pay bills and then die. I want time to live and enjoy life too

[Jakekhalid]

Don't take your eyes off the PRIZE no matter what the distractions maybe be around you. UNDERSTAND YOUR PURPOSE, I went from living an average life to making over 63k per month. It's amazing. The financial markets are full with opportunities, but I've learned a lot over the past few years to doubt that. The key is knowing where to focus. Well appreciated, Rodger Michael Karl.

[querube]

As a 4 day workweek worker I can say that I CANNOT go back! I get three whole days to do as I want! I still work the 40 hrs but given that with all previous jobs I had I spent at least an hour commuting I don't really mind the long workday. They just increased it to 5 days 11.5 hrs a week for the holidays and I feel sick, I cannot believe I used to work like this normally. Can't wait for it to go back to normal. Please please please normalize this! Having a non weekend day off is amazing when making doctor/car maintenance/personal appointments.

[leafblade]

The thing we really need to do, make sure that people are compensated enough where a 32-40 hour work week provides enough for them to live on. Otherwise even more people will end up taking two jobs to support themselves.

[khoirulanam]

whereas in Japan they are really overworked and even jumping from a building to end one's life is happiness. reduction in working hours is absolutely necessary, it really reduces stress.

[noriceformeplz]

I only work 3 days 12 hour shifts in a warehouse, easy work, pay over $25hr, I couldn't ask for an easier job.

[danieldylan]

I remember in Junior High School 1965, my general business teacher telling us we would be working four day weeks and have more leisure time with three day weekends. LOL It never happened. I retired in 2017 and worked five and six days a week my entire life. Nice to see this pipe dream is still around.