What do 'fully remote' and the 4 day work week have in common?
People who want 4 day work weeks don't work hard or care about what they're doing. They're unproductive and lazy.
This was along the lines of what a lot of people pre-2020 thought about those who wanted to work fully remote. How wrong they were!
I'm not going to spout off stats on the levels of productivity of remote workers- it's been done and we're 2 years into it now and those who choose not to allow remote work (when it's possible) are just short-sighted and ignorant - IMHO.
The UK just announced that it's trialing a 4 day work week with around 70 companies and over 3,000 employees. This will be the biggest four-day work week pilot in the world with researchers at Cambridge University and Boston College collecting and analysing the results.
The four-day work week is not a new concept though and the UK certainly isn't the first to try this.
Between 2015 to 2019, Iceland conducted a pilot of a 35 to 36-hour workweek (cut down from the customary 40 hours) without a pay cut, with around 2,500 people taking part.
The results were analysed by British think tank, Autonomy and the Icelandic non-profit Association for Sustainability and Democracy (ALDA). The pilot was dubbed a success by researchers and Icelandic trade unions negotiated for a reduction in working hours.
In Japan, some larger organisations have tried the four day work week, following the government’s announcement in 2021 of a plan to achieve a better work-life balance across the nation. Death by overwork claims many lives in Japan every year. They actually have the term "karoshi" which is translated to "overwork death". Officially, the Japanese government has registered around 200 claims for karoshi "work injuries" per year, although some activists say this figure falls short and estimate up to 10,000 deaths annually from karoshi.
In 2019, tech giant Microsoft experimented with the model by offering employees three-day weekends for a month. The move boosted productivity by 40 per cent and resulted in more efficient work.
In February 2022, Belgian employees won the right to perform a full workweek in four days instead of the usual five without loss of salary. Employees will be able to decide whether to work four or five days a week, but this does not mean they will be working less – they will simply condense their working hours into fewer days.
From everything I've read about, the 4 day work week it's nothing but a positive thing for individuals' happiness and productivity, but also for companies and the economy overall.
Perpetual Guardian, conducted a trial study of a 4 day work week. Not only did employees maintain the same productivity level, but they also showed improvements in job satisfaction, teamwork, work/life balance and company loyalty. Employees also experienced less stress with a decrease of 45% to 38%.
Given that some of the world’s most productive countries, like Norway, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, on average work around 27 hours a week -- the same hours proposed for a UK 4 day work week, these results aren't so surprising. On the other hand, Japan, a nation notoriously known for overworked employees, ranks 20th out of 35 countries for productivity.
I for one am excited to see the results of the world's largest 4 day work week pilot as it could pave the way for more companies to introduce it and mean more work-life balance.
In honour of this, this week I have listed 10 companies that offer 4 day work weeks AND remote roles: