A Four Day Work Week - April 24, 2026

Will It Really Work, And For Whom?

From time-to-time I come across discussions on a movement to have employers adopt a four-day work week for their employees. Typically, I don’t pay much attention to this topic because the concept seems counter-intuitive.  But, the topic keeps resurfacing, so I thought I would research it and articulate some thoughts.  

As part of my research for this article I conducted an informal survey of ten business leaders and I’ll share the results of that survey at the end of this article, but one comment I received is worth sharing now, that being, “Four days a week?...I thought there were seven working days in a week!...”. 

To level-set, there are two models that are typically proposed for a four-day work week: one is where employees work forty hours a week over four working days, which results in ten-hour working days for the employee group.  The other model has employees working eight-hour days, working four days a week, while still getting paid for a full forty-hour work week.  In either of these models, the employees still earn forty hours of weekly pay; I haven’t seen any models or discussions of reducing employees’ pay in the context of a shorter work week.   In the former model, employees work longer days, making that sacrifice to ensure they get paid the same amount on a weekly basis, while the employer still gets forty hours of work from their employees, in theory.  In the latter model, the employees still get the same pay, but the employer makes the sacrifice by incurring a higher rate of pay, getting less work hours from their employees, and likely having to incur additional costs by hiring more employees to back-fill for the shorter work week. Among those advocating for a four-day work week, the shorter 32-hour work week for the same pay as a 40-hour work week seems to be more popular.  Of course it is…

The 32 hour work week with a full 40 hours of pay is primarily championed by the political left, labour unions, progressive think tanks, and a minority of business leaders. It is consistent with the traditional thinking of the labour movement; the idea that workers should share in the gains of productivity growth rather than those gains flowing entirely to business owners and investors of capital. The business case advocates of a four-day work week tend to support it for different reasons: talent retention and productivity, rather than as a matter of workers' rights.  

The main arguments made in favour of a four-day work week:

1. Productivity doesn't drop and often improves; The evidence from multiple trials suggests that people can get the same amount of work done in less time when they are more focused and rested. It’s argued that much of the fifth day is spent on low-value activities: unnecessary meetings, distracted browsing, water cooler time, rather than genuine output.

2. Employee well-being improves significantly; Workers consistently report lower stress, less burnout, better sleep, and improved mental health. This will result in fewer errors, fewer sick days, and more engagement at work.

3. Reduced absenteeism; When employees have adequate rest built into their schedule, they call-in sick less often. Several trials showed meaningful drops in sick days taken, which offsets some of the cost of the reduced hours.

4. Better talent attraction and retention; A four-day week is a strong recruiting tool, especially in competitive industries. Companies that offer it can attract candidates who might otherwise go elsewhere, with existing employees less likely to leave. The UK trial showed staff turnover dropping by 57% during the pilot period.

5. Gender equality benefits; A shorter work week gives people more time for caregiving and domestic responsibilities. Since women disproportionately carry that burden, more flexible time can help level the playing field, allowing women to participate more fully in the workforce.

6. Environmental benefits;  Fewer commuting days means lower carbon emissions. The Microsoft Japan trial saw electricity consumption drop 23% and pages printed fall nearly 60%. 

7. The 40-hour, five-day week is historically arbitrary;  The current standard was established in the early 20th century for factory workers doing manual labour. Advocates argue that there is no scientific or economic reason it should still be the default for knowledge workers in a digital economy. The argument is that working norms should evolve as the nature of work evolves.

8. People are not actually productive for eight hours a day; Research on actual productive output suggests most workers are genuinely productive for only four to six hours in a typical eight-hour day. The rest is filled with low-value tasks, distraction, and fatigue. A shorter week forces better use of the time that is actually productive.

Here are the main arguments made against a four-day work week:

1. It doesn't work for all industries; This is the most straightforward objection. Healthcare, emergency services, retail, hospitality, manufacturing, and customer-facing businesses cannot simply close for one day of the week. Someone has to be there. For these sectors, which employ a huge portion of the workforce, a four-day week either doesn't apply or requires complex, costly scheduling workarounds.

2. The productivity evidence is overstated;  Critics point out that most trials were voluntary; meaning only motivated, progressive companies participated. A company that signs up for a four-day week trial is probably already well-run and open to change. The results may not transfer to average or resistant organizations. 

3. Longer days can be exhausting; In the compressed hours model (4 days a week x 10 hours per day), employees work the same total hours but on longer days. Research suggests long shifts increase fatigue, errors, and health risks, particularly in physical or high-stakes jobs. The extra day off may not compensate for the gruelling days that precede it.

4. It can increase stress, not reduce it;   Fitting five days of work into four can create intense pressure. Some employees in trials reported feeling more anxious and rushed, not less. If the workload doesn't actually decrease,  only the time does, people may simply work harder and faster, which is not the same as working better.  An organization needs work tasks to be done; the workload of the business will not be reduced because the employee group only works 32 hours a week.  

5. Small businesses would struggle disproportionately;  Large companies with many employees can stagger schedules and absorb the transition costs. Small businesses with lean teams often cannot afford to lose a fifth of their operating time, and may lack the resources to restructure workflows the way larger organizations can.

6. Customer and client expectations; Businesses that interact with clients, customers, or partners who operate on a five-day work week face real gaps. If your law firm takes Fridays off but the court system doesn't, or your supplier works five days and you work four, coordination problems multiply quickly.  As a practical matter, the business will have to incur additional costs by hiring more staff to cover the one less day worked by the employee group.

7. It could widen inequality; White-collar knowledge workers are the ones most likely to benefit. Manual workers, gig workers, part-time workers, and those in hourly roles may see no benefit, or may simply lose a day's pay. 

8. The trials are too short and too small;  Most pilot/trials ran for six months or less, with self-selected companies. Critics argue this is not long enough to observe real effects, novelty and enthusiasm may inflate early results. A company performing well during a six-month experiment may look very different two years in when the excitement fades.

9. Global competitiveness concerns;  If one country adopts a four-day week and its trading partners do not, businesses in that country may be at a disadvantage, less available, less responsive, producing less. This concern is especially pointed for export-driven economies or industries competing internationally.

10. Inflationary pressure If workers earn the same for less time, labour costs per unit of output rise unless productivity genuinely offsets the difference. In sectors where that productivity gain doesn't materialize, businesses face higher costs which may have to be passed on to consumers. 

Here are the commonly cited shorter work-week trials:

• 1. Iceland (2015–2019) The report is titled "Going Public: Iceland's Journey to a Shorter Working Week," published jointly by the Icelandic research organization Alda (Association for Sustainability and Democracy) and the UK think tank Autonomy. Productivity stayed the same or improved across hundreds of workplaces. Worth noting: the trial did not actually involve a strict four-day work week — workers moved from 40 hours to 35–36 hours per week, which the media somewhat overstated as a "four-day week." (Source - The Conversation)

• 2. UK Trial (2022) The report is titled "The Results Are In: The UK's Four-Day Week Pilot."  61 companies, 2,900 employees. 92% of companies continued the four-day week after the trial. Revenue stayed roughly the same, absenteeism dropped, resignations dropped.   It was conducted by 4 Day Week Global in collaboration with the think tank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week Campaign, and researchers at the University of Cambridge and Boston College. (Source - Work in Mind)

• 3. Microsoft Japan (2019) Microsoft Japan called their experiment the "Work-Life Choice Challenge 2019 Summer." The pilot program aimed to assess the impact of a four-day workweek on productivity, motivation, well-being, and job satisfaction. (Source - 4 Day Week)  Productivity jumped 40% in a four-day week trial. 

• 4. New Zealand — Perpetual Guardian (2018) Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand trust management company, announced a 20% gain in employee productivity and a 45% increase in employee work-life balance after a trial of paying people their regular salary for working four days. (Source -  NPR: The trial didn't have a formal study name; it was an internal company pilot initiated by founder Andrew Barnes, later analyzed by researchers from the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology). 

Those advocating for a shorter work week argue that “it works best when the focus shifts from time spent to output delivered. This requires a cultural shift in how managers think about work, not just a change to the calendar.”  I would argue that this is how companies should be run, to begin with. It’s not something an organization adopts to justify a shorter work week.  Focus on the outputs, the dependability and trustworthiness of the team member, not their hours worked.   And this is why I struggle to support the notion that a shorter work week will solve the organizational issues cited above.  The leadership and management of a well-run organization should focus on output delivered by all functional areas of the business, and by all employees, period.  Focussing on hours-worked is placing value on the wrong metric.   Toxic management, poor organization, excessive meetings, unclear priorities = A Dysfunctional Company. A four-day week applied to a dysfunctional workplace will simply compress the dysfunction rather than fix it.

Summary of SP’s Informal Survey: 

• ten companies surveyed

• none were considering a four-day work week

• Survey demographics:

  • Three product companies

  • One Cdn federal government office

  • One hospitality organization

  • Three professional service providers

  • Two wealth managers

• Interesting comments:

  • “Have reduced the work week for some staff, but it came with reduced pay.”

  • “Four days…I thought there were seven working days in a week…”