Can four-day workweek provide health benefits to employees?
- Charles Chau
- Topics: Australia, Employee Experience, Health and Wellness, Home Page - News, News, US
The study, conducted by non-profit organisation 4 Day Week Global, showed that employees who transitioned to a four-day week clocked seven hours and 58 minutes of sleep per night, an hour more than they slept while working five days a week.
4 Day Week Global, which has been testing the feasibility of a four-day workweek as part of the future of work, commissioned economist Juliet Schor to survey 304 workers at 16 companies across the US, UK, and Australia, as part of a six-month trial run.
Sleep deprivation fell drastically for those in the study who changed to a four-day week. The percentage of those who had been getting less than seven hours of sleep a night decreased from 42.6% to 14.5%.
READ: Four-day workweek set to be permanent in the UK
Seventy companies in the UK are participating in the programme, and early results suggested it has been beneficial for them. Of 41 of those companies that responded to a mid-point check-in survey, 88% said the experiment was working “well” and 86% said they were “likely” or “extremely likely” to consider keeping the four-day schedule.
The four-day workweek has been a rising topic among top business executives, Insider reported.
