The five-day workweek has been the U.S. legislation for 80 years, however a majority of People wish to change over to a four-day workweek, based on a brand new Bentley-Gallup Enterprise in Society Report.
Seventy-seven p.c of U.S. staff surveyed say a four-day, 40-hour workweek would have an especially or considerably constructive impact on their well-being. Staff additionally mentioned they wished their firms to supply psychological well being days (74%) and restrict the work they’re anticipated to carry out exterior of labor hours (73%).
Some firms, together with Amazon, Basecamp, Microsoft, and Panasonic, supply four-day workweek choices, however most companies are sticking with the tried-and-true five-day mannequin. Why? Consultants say it is a mixture of decrease productiveness (though research present this to not be the case), staffing points, elevated prices, and complicated adjustments to operations.
Plus, there’s simply an general resistance to vary.
“It has been virtually 100 years we have operated with the present workweek,” Juliet Schor, an economist and sociologist at Boston Faculty who has researched the four-day workweek, advised The Washington Submit. “I do not assume we will count on it [to change] in a single day.”
A quick historical past of the five-day workweek
Responding to stress from labor unions, Henry Ford was one of many first employers to standardize a five-day, 40-hour workweek in 1926. Ford additionally noticed that minimizing hours would result in a affluent center class, the spine of his manufacturing unit staff. Within the early days of the Industrial Revolution, People labored like canine, averaging 100 hours per week, six-days per week—one thing wanted to vary. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt handed the Honest Labor Requirements Act, which made the 40-hour workweek the legislation of the land.
How a 4-day workweek works
However in recent times, many firms have adopted a four-day workweek by which workers are allowed to work 10-hour workdays, 4 days per week, as a substitute of eight-hour workdays, 5 days per week. The pay stays the identical, however the schedule adjustments, permitting staff to take pleasure in an additional free day every week.
4-day workweeks are widespread amongst millennials and Gen Z, who put a robust worth on work-life stability. Actually, 92% of younger folks say that they’d work longer hours in alternate for a four-day workweek, based on a Bankrate survey.
Final yr, greater than 33 firms within the UK did a four-day workweek trial run for six months. Afterward, many of the firms mentioned they’d not return to the five-day workweek, reporting that productiveness and worker happiness had been up.
Sluggish to undertake
Regardless of the passion many workers have for a four-day workweek, their employers usually are not as jazzed. Solely 15% of U.S. staff say their firms supply four-day weekweeks, based on a 2023 survey by ADP.
Change is tough, particularly in a risky financial system the place companies do not wish to take possibilities. However trade analysts say that in the end, the extra staff demand four-day workweeks the extra their bosses will bend to their will. It is all a matter of provide and demand, one thing firms know all about.
“As soon as some firms begin providing [four-day workweeks] and as soon as many staff begin to apply for these positions … it would truly find yourself placing extra stress on firms to introduce this non-traditional perk,” Sarah Foster, a Bankrate analyst, advised CNBC.
