The ‘4 Day Week Campaign’ started by a group — comprising academics from Oxford and Cambridge, along with experts from Boston College, US — has been gathering momentum. About 100 British companies have signed up for the global pilot programme, which is allowing four days of working with no change in compensation. That means, about 2,600 employees will be part of this experiment in the UK.
The group is studying the effect of a four-day work week on the productivity and well-being of the staff over a period of six months, while they work for four days instead of five but aim to deliver the same results and take home the same salary. The global pilot programme is on till December 2022 and hopes to see three major benefits in terms of employee well-being, business outcomes/productivity and global climate/environment.
The experiment is being conducted under the aegis of Autonomy, a think tank, along with 4-Day Week Global, a not-for-profit coalition.
Globally, more than 150 companies were part of this experiment, which involved about 7,000 employees across Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, the US and the UK.
To obtain authorisation for four-day week, the employers are obligated to confirm that they have reduced their full-time work hours without cutting the pay of their employees. They have to shorten the work hours to 32 hours or less for four days for ‘gold standard’, or bring the work hours down to 35 hours or less for four days for ‘silver standard’.
