Four-day work week has a chance to gain traction this time

It’s worth noting that companies in the UK trial have opted to participate, meaning leaders at the firms support the idea and have sold employees on it. But beyond the trial, companies are increasingly using flexible work arrangements. A recent study in the UK found advertisements for four-day week positions jumped by 90 per cent in June from the previous year.

Anna Yukhtenko, a 30-year-old senior games analyst at Hutch, said she’s getting the same amount of work done and the four-day schedule is a big part of why she’s sticking around at a time when her skills are in demand and she could switch jobs. Her colleague Chris Hohbein, 39, has a 90-minute commute from Cambridge. The new schedule means more time with his son and he said he feels more refreshed after the three-day weekends.

In general, people work less these days than they did in past decades. But perceptions around hard work and dedication to the job are hard to shake, particularly in the US. For many, being at your desk for long hours is a sign of productivity. And with the US economy in turmoil, some companies may seize on that to take a harder line on bringing employees back to the office. Elon Musk recently said remote work was “no longer acceptable” and that employees should be in the office at least 40 hours a week.

The push back to the office is bumping up against pressure from employees who want flexible schedules. In Silicon Valley, the ride-sharing app Bolt made the move to a four-day schedule, while crowdfunding platform Kickstarter launched a trial in recent months. In Japan, industrial conglomerate Panasonic introduced an optional four-day schedule this January, while UK consumer goods company Unilever did a year-long trial in New Zealand.

Minneapolis-based Sarah Goff-Dupont, 43, got approval to experiment with a four-day schedule last summer, along with several of her colleagues at Atlassian, a software company. Packing all of her work between Monday and Thursday was initially hard, but eventually paid off, with more time for her two kids, who are now 8 and 11.

She’s doing it again this summer, but is using her unlimited vacation days to make it happen. Her colleagues are not joining her, she suspects because they’re concerned about the signal it might send to managers.

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“If the UK experiment can take some of the stigma off parents or anybody, that would be great,” she said.

Bloomberg

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