The Power of A 4-Day Workweek: Elevating Mental Health and Productivity
Imagine a workweek where you could accomplish just as much if not more, in four days instead of the traditional five. The notion of a 4-day workweek has caught the attention of businesses worldwide, sparked by a measure introduced in Belgium that allows employees to work longer days to enjoy a 3-day weekend. Social media has been excited about this idea, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on businesses and mental health.
In this article by Jennifer Moss written for CBC News, it delves into the power of decreased work hours and explores how adopting a shorter workweek can significantly improve overall mental health and productivity within organizations.
The Pandemic's Impact on Workloads and Mental Health
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many workers have now described their work situation as worse than ever before. They explained how the loss of valuable employees in many businesses had increased the workload for those still fighting this battle of working long hours and experiencing burnout because of being overworked.
Keep reading to learn more about the benefits of working shorter workweeks and how it can prevent further mental health damage to your employees.
"The way we're currently working is not sustainable," Moss writes.
In 2020, during the pandemic, workloads increased sharply. Several research studies showed that we'd added two, sometimes three, hours to our workday.
But in Iceland, the story is vastly different. After testing a 35-hour workweek, they've concluded, it's not just better for well-being — it's making employees more productive.
With overwork a leading cause of burnout, it's incredible that during a year of such massive stress, we've worked longer than ever. And it's a real problem with serious consequences.
Gallup's report, Employee Burnout: Causes and Cures, states, "Employees who strongly agree that they always have too much to do are more than twice as likely to experience burnout very often or always at work."
The International Labour Organization reported in May that excessively long working hours contribute to the deaths of 2.8 million workers yearly
Canadians put in 200-plus more hours at work each year than their Swedish counterparts. Yet people in Sweden enjoy a 20 percent higher GDP (gross domestic product) per capita than Canadians.
This is why we're starting to see experiments like the one in Iceland garnering attention. The way we're currently working is just not sustainable and is causing serious negative impacts on our well-being.
Why Less Is More
Iceland's four-year experiment with shorter work weeks across 2,500 public sector employees shows improved work-life balance. There was no reduction in pay with the shorter work week of 35 to 36 hours, and employees were either just as productive or more.
Evidence for this was found by tracking various government services. For example, government call centres showed 93 percent of calls answered despite shorter shifts versus 85 percent at a "control" workplace.
At the Department of Accountancy, there was a 6.5 percent increase in invoices entered. For police, the average number of cases closed per month climbed from 7.8 before the study to 8.8 during the project. At the immigration registry office, the time to process applications fell from six days to two.
And the Iceland experiment is only just bolstering earlier research.
In 2019, productivity rose about 40 percent during Microsoft Japan's experiment with a four-day workweek. Perpetual Guardian, a financial services firm based out of New Zealand, found gains of 20 percent productivity in their trial and has now instituted the shorter workweek permanently.
Zorra Township, near London, Ont., is the largest trial in Canada. It started in September 2020, and the results are promising.
Can't Take Every Friday Off
To make this experiment work for all roles and sectors, we must determine if we should reduce hours versus days worked. Even advocates of a four-day workweek acknowledge that the design is only suited to some jobs in, for instance, construction and computer programming that requires intense concentration. In those jobs, productivity falls off during the longer shifts.
The Perpetual Guardian example solved this by changing its work model to give every worker a day off a week. They were paid for 37.5 hours but only worked an average of 30 hours weekly.
The CEO cites customer service, for example, as a role that can't just be off every Friday — so instead, it was about giving staff more flexibility in how and when they worked. This resulted in staff taking different days off between Monday and Friday, determined by factors like parents versus non-parents, the structure of the teams, etc.
Worth The Investment?
One trial in Sweden, with a reduction of six hours each week, meant hiring more resources at an annual cost of $738,000. Covering healthcare workers during Iceland's trials added $30 million to their government budget.
But, the tradeoffs to adding resources are offset by other ancillary benefits that some may not even realize. Take the environment and climate change, for example — one global think tank forecasts a 21.3 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2025 if a four-day week was adopted now. It can also lead to a decrease in traffic congestion. Plus, the cost of daycare could go down.
Despite the risk of potentially adding more resources, the research consistently points to more pros than cons. Following the trials' success, 86 percent of Iceland's working population has adopted shorter working hours. They see it as worth the investment.
Where Employers Can Start
The research emphasizes how much time we waste at work, so the key lesson here is changing the areas where we waste the most time:
Work meetings must be shortened (one office banned meetings after 3 p.m.).
Make sure everyone knows what their number one priority is. Stop working on urgent versus priority needs.
Focus on strengths. Ensure employees are optimally leveraging their assets and skills. For example, physicians are burning out at record rates; a big reason is the added time spent updating electronic health records. Physicians are experts in medicine, not data administration. Issues like this are costly.
Check in frequently, but don't micromanage. Make sure employees are aware of the minutiae, like overreporting.
Not only do simple tactics like these make it easier to reduce work hours, it improves our experience of work, which adds more happiness to all areas of our lives.
Conclusion
Today, several opportunities have been discovered to help break this horrible burnout pattern within organizations. Over the last few years, organizations have drastically boosted their employees' mental health resources, which was highly needed. However, the main concept of this 4-workweek method is to focus on understanding how to create a workweek that will benefit employers, employees, and the overall business and still allow employees to effectively get more work done within a reasonable amount of time during the week instead of having to work long hours.
Do you want to discuss this further with Jennifer Moss? As an international female public speaker, award-winning author of multiple books, and UN Global Happiness Committee Member, she is here to help. Moss is based in Kitchener, Ontario. Click below to start a conversation.