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de Groot
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How does a 4-day work week work? - Meaning, benefits, examples.
In this article we will answer the following question: “How does a 4-day work week work?”.
Everybody likes to have a day off. Spending time with family and friends for an extra day of the week can increase the well-being of employees. The standard 5-day work week can exhaust employees and can ultimately result in a burnout. Offering a 4-day work week can attract highly productive and motivated employees.
What is a 4-day work week?
A 4-day work week is an arrangement within an organization to work for 4 days a week, instead of the usual 5-day work week.
This can have multiple implementations, but the most seen is the Monday to Thursday variation. Giving employees Friday as an extra day for the weekend. The second most seen is the Tuesday to Friday variation. Also giving employees an extra day for the weekend.
Employers can give their own variations to the workdays and the number of working hours. For example, some companies have 32-hour work weeks and others have 40-hour work weeks.
A 32-hour 4-day work week could look like this:
| Day of the week | Work schedule |
| Monday | Work from 9 am - 5pm |
| Tuesday | Work from 9 am - 5pm |
| Wednesday | Work from 9 am - 5pm |
| Thursday | Work from 9 am - 5pm |
| Friday | Day-off |
| Saturday | Day-off |
| Sunday | Day-off |
A 40-hour 4-day work week could look like this:
| Day of the week | Work schedule |
| Monday | Work from 8 am - 6 pm |
| Tuesday | Work from 8 am - 6 pm |
| Wednesday | Work from 8 am - 6 pm |
| Thursday | Work from 8 am - 6 pm |
| Friday | Day-off |
| Saturday | Day-off |
| Sunday | Day-off |
What are the benefits of a 4-day work week?
Working 5 days in the week can be exhausting and can result in headaches and burnouts. Having 1 more day of weekend can relieve a lot of stress. A lot of employees would love to be able to spend time with family and friends for 1 more day. This extra day can really help with the well-being of employees.
In this extra day employees can work on their personal goals, growth and ambitions. Besides working on themselves, they can also schedule meetings and appointments for their private life. This can be a hard task sometimes when working with a 5-day work week. Knowing all these benefits will help you know how does a 4-day work week work.
To sum up all the benefits of a 4-day work week:
Increases productivity
Having 1 extra day off will help employees stay focused. Getting an extra day off will help increase well-being and will thus increase the motivation of employees, resulting in a higher productivity.
Increases well-being of employees
Employees' well-being will be increased, because they are able to spend time on themselves. They can spend more time with family and friends and can do things they like.
Reduces carbon footprint of employees & company
Employees will not need to travel to the office space, this will be beneficial to the environment.
Reduces potential day care costs for employees
Employees with kids would usually need to spend money on day care. When employees get 1 day-off each week, they will be able to look after their kids themselves, reducing costs for employees on day care.
Operational expenses for the office space will decrease
The operational expenses of the office space will decrease, because the office will not be in use to the fullest. Costs that will be saved include the costs for catering, cleaning services and electricity.
How can a 4-day work week achieve goals?
Now that we know what the 4-day work week is and what the benefits are, we should know how does a 4-day work week work with regards to achieving goals.
Just as mentioned earlier, employees will be more motivated and will try their best to reach their goals. Even though reaching goals in a shorter time frame can be difficult, it is certainly possible. However, if the goals are the exact same as the goals for a 5-day work week. It can cause a lot of stress for employees. This would completely deny the whole point of the 4-day work week.
However, the 40-hour version of the 4-day work week would be able to achieve these ‘standard’ goals.
To achieve better results with the 32-hour version of the 4-day work week, the goals need to be less big and more specific. These goals should also lead towards a bigger goal that is really important to the company. Making this goal known around all employees is a really important task. If this is successful, you are halfway near knowing how does a 4-day work week work.
Companies and countries that have tried a 4-day work week
A lot of companies and people see the potential of the 4-day work week. Some well-known companies have even tried a 4-day work week. The following well-known companies use or have tried the 4-day work week:
Not only companies see the potential of 4-day work weeks. There are even countries that have tried experimenting with 4-day work weeks.
Is the 4-day work week here to stay?
We hope you learned how does a 4-day work week work. It is a great idea, that could possibly be the future of working. However, before we get to the point where 4-day work weeks become the new standard, it does need a lot of organization and there will need to be a lot of trial and error.
But when we reach that point, there is a reasonable chance that a lot of companies will make use of the 4-day work week. Another alternative for the 4-day work week is hybrid working.
Want to know more about hybrid working? Feel free to take a look at our blog: 20 hybrid work statistics you need to know about
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