Research conducted by Boston College in the United States reveals that working a four-day week helps reduce burnout and increases job satisfaction.
The study, which was published in Nature Human Behaviour, examined the impact of reducing employees’ hours to four days a week while their pay remained unchanged.
The study involved six-month trials that reduced working hours for 2,896 employees at 141 organisations in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States. The results from the trials were compared with those from 12 control companies that continued with their standard workweek and did not adopt the reduced schedule.
Researchers observed that employees whose workweek was cut by eight hours or more reported greater decreases in burnout, as well as stronger gains in job satisfaction and mental health, compared to those who continued working a standard five-day week.
“While the study centred on a four-day week, the broader implication is clear: flexible and potentially individualised working arrangements can deliver similar benefits,” Associate Professor Paula O’Kane, from the University of Otago’s business school, said.
“Traditionally, time spent working is used as a proxy for productivity, when in fact better-rested and healthier people can be more productive in less time.”
O’Kane said it would be beneficial to focus more on output-based measures to assess production and productivity, “Making sure that we understand what it is we want our employees to do in a week rather than how much time we want them to spend at work.”
“If we look at the students that are coming through university and looking at how they operate their lives, they are going to want flexibility. We can see it already – they’re not going to accept the traditional structures.”
She also highlighted the mounting evidence showing how non-traditional work arrangements actually benefit employees more. It’s also evident that younger generations will increasingly expect greater flexibility in their work lives.
For O’Kane, companies will need to reconsider and redesign their work structures if they hope to continue attracting the best talent in the years ahead.