Inside the four-day work week

A hundred years ago, it would have made no sense to wish somebody a “nice weekend”. There was no “hump day” to give colleagues a mid-week morale boost because there was no defined end to the working week. For millennia, working schedules were governed by the seasons, with our agrarian ancestors sometimes working for only 120 days a year.

But in the mid-18th century, the Industrial Revolution ushered in an era of profit-driven productivity where factory workers were expected to work a gruelling 12 to 16 hours a day, six days a week. This gave rise to international labour movements during the 19th century aimed at improving workers’ lot. By the turn of the 20th century, this had paved the way for another new era.

Ford Motor Company was the first to make the move, introducing an eight-hour working day in 1914 and a five-day week in 1926. Primarily implemented to boost productivity and wellbeing, the owner Henry Ford also saw it as an opportunity for his workers to spend time off buying consumer products, thus boosting the wider economy.

But it wasn’t until 1932, with mass unemployment during the Great Depression, that the US officially adopted a five-day week. The concept of the weekend was born and embraced by more employers – including Boots in the UK, which made a five-day week permanent from 1934.

Then, in the 1940s and 1950s, the confectioner Cadbury experimented with allowing workers between 14 and 18 to reduce their working days from five to four, with the fifth day spent at the factory’s Bournville college. Now, in the 21st century, it is an idea around which momentum is building due to the rise of flexible working in the pandemic.

There are two sides to the argument in 2025. On the one hand, proponents believe a four-day week can increase employee wellbeing and productivity, thus boosting overall business performance. On the other, opponents argue that it could create conditions that increase stress and reduce productivity.

For example, it might lead to longer working days across the rest of the week in order to maintain overall hours, and also to scheduling difficulties, particularly in customer service roles. Early adopters seem to be reaping the rewards but others have reversed course, which begs the question: is a four-day week a genuinely workable and sustainable solution to the needs of our busy lives?

The 4 Day Week Foundation (4DWF) has been leading the national campaign for a four-day week in the UK since 2022, with almost 250 employers signing up to its accreditation scheme.

“The traditional way of working no longer fits the way we live and work today,” says campaign director Joe Ryle. “If you think about all the productivity gains we have had in the economy, particularly in the last few decades, we are more productive in the workplace but working hours haven’t reduced accordingly. We are long overdue an update.”

Beyond the business benefits, society and the environment could also stand to gain from a reduced working week. While a more equal share of paid and unpaid work could promote a more gender-equal society, research shows the UK’s carbon footprint could reduce by 127 million tonnes per year, freeing up time for people to make more environmentally positive choices.

For example, taking time to walk or cycle to work and cooking with fresh ingredients instead of heating up energy-intensive ready meals. Indeed, of the 950 employees who took part in 4DWF’s 2024 pilot of a reduced working week, 33 per cent registered a decrease in work stress, 62 per cent said they experienced burnout less often and 47 per cent felt more job satisfaction.

Another 41 per cent recorded an improvement in mental health and 45 per cent claimed to feel more satisfied with life. All the 17 organisations who had taken part confirmed they would continue the trial.

Atom bank is almost four years into its four-day week. It was the first UK bank and largest UK company at the time to implement a 34-hour week for all employees, with no reduction in pay. According to its chief operating officer, Helen Wilson, persistence and a sharp focus on efficiency have been key to the policy’s success.

“Challenging a century-old working model is not easy and may not result in overnight success,” says Wilson. “The move requires a fundamental shift in operating model and working practice. Be prepared to work hard and be persistent to overcome initial difficulties.”

Workload management was an initial concern for some employees, particularly those in small teams or with specialist roles, who were worried they might feel pushed for time. However, internal surveys showed 91 per cent of staff felt they could accomplish their work in that time and 92 per cent felt encouraged to find efficiencies, such as streamlining processes and working more collaboratively.

“The four-day week is not about compressing five days of work into four. It’s about improving productivity and working practices to achieve the same output in less time,” says Wilson. “View it not just as an employee perk, but as a logical evolution of work, especially in a digital age where technology like AI is driving greater efficiencies.”

Defining clear, measurable metrics has been key to tracking the policy’s effectiveness. This shows there have been “significant positive impacts” on employees, operations and customers. In the first year, 95 per cent of employees reported a better work-life balance and 92 per cent said they looked forward to work, contributing to an overall decline in absenteeism.

At the same time, Atom’s customer service score on Trustpilot rose from 4.54 to 4.82. Wilson says a commitment from senior leadership to model the new behaviour is essential and that leaders must help teams find high-value work and eliminate distractions, such as unnecessary meetings.

IMD Solicitors has been operating a four-day week for the past two years, after co-founder Iwona Durlak found that she was struggling to balance work with family responsibilities – and recognised similar challenges affecting her team.

The initial pilot went well enough to commit to a firm-wide rollout, with the boutique law firm reporting a 122 per cent increase in fee income, monthly staff satisfaction scores averaging 8.98 out of 10 and also, according to Net Promoter Scores, increased client satisfaction.

But in the early days, co-founder and managing partner Marcin Durlak admits the team wasn’t as enthusiastic as it has grown to be. The chief concern was handling 100 per cent of the work in 80 per cent of the time. It took staff some months to adjust.

“It takes the right people in the right culture – and in our case the culture is very much based on trust,” says Durlak. “We give people flexibility but we expect them to take ownership and responsibility, be proactive and support each other. Good planning and communication are absolutely essential.”

According to IMD, the reduction in hours has not hit productivity. It reported a 22.2 per cent increase in turnover and a 29 per cent increase in profit in 2024. Internal processes and technologies have helped drive the transition, with IMD creating a dedicated framework to encourage everyone to contribute to improvements.

“It shouldn’t only go from the top down,” stresses Durlak. “We encourage everyone to think about efficiency, innovation and how we can do things differently. Then they’re more likely to engage.”

The four-day week has, perhaps unsurprisingly, been a big draw for recruitment and retention. In the first year after introducing the policy, Atom saw a 49 per cent increase in job applications, while IMD has maintained 100 per cent voluntary staff retention since.

“It has been an absolute gamechanger for us and played a major role in attracting talent,” says Durlak. Combined with a remote-working policy, offering a four-day week has significantly expanded the talent pool across the UK.

It is a similar story for digital design agency Driftime, which was set up as a four-day work week company when it was founded in 2016. Besides increased efficiency and creativity, co-founder Abb-d Taiyo highlights how it has helped to bring in a higher calibre of job candidate.

“You become a talent magnet in a way,” he says. “We get a lot of applications every time we put a job out – even from people who over-qualify for the role – simply because of the four-day work week, the culture and the things that we represent.”

There may be no five-day week data to compare it to, but employee engagement surveys chart improvements in key metrics over time.

“We know there’s more creativity as a result because we’re tackling things like burnout before they even happen,” says Taiyo, whose team works remotely across the UK. They are given the autonomy to choose how to structure their week and manage time accordingly.

Echoing Durlak, Taiyo says: “We work on a high-trust basis. If we give them the freedoms that we would expect, then everyone’s happy, everyone’s doing good work and everyone cares about the success of the business in general.”

While the evidence suggests there are myriad positive impacts of a four-day week, it is not something that will necessarily work for every business or industry. Understaffing, operational pressures and logistical challenges can all make the transition tricky – or even impossible.

Asda and Morrisons are examples of why a shorter working week is difficult for public-facing roles: both scrapped their four-day week for head-office staff after employees complained about longer working hours and higher physical demands.

Na Fu, professor of responsible leadership at Trinity College Dublin, explains why it is not a universal solution.

“Outcomes depend heavily on sector, organisational culture and how productivity is defined,” she says. “In knowledge-intensive or digital sectors, work can be reorganised around outcomes rather than hours. But in healthcare, manufacturing, frontline services and primary and secondary education where tasks are time-bound and people-centred, a compressed week can easily intensify workloads rather than reduce them.”

Video game developer Bossa Studios has trialled and the reversed a four-day week. The summer pilot was initially deemed a success and was well-received by employees and senior leadership. Meetings became more efficient, the company reported lower attrition and surveys showed improved staff wellbeing and work-life balance.

But things became complicated during a work-for-hire project the following summer, which meant some of the team had to report to an external company and work around its production schedule, where a four-day week simply wasn’t feasible.

“It was a challenge working with different external companies where we weren’t in charge of our production schedules,” explains Bossa Studios’ former chief people officer, Alice Turner. “For us, it didn’t matter as long as people hit their objectives, but that didn’t work for the other company so we had to rejig it.”

Bossa Studios ended up giving those employees a few extra days’ holiday to account for the lost days, which Turner did not believe would be a sustainable policy in the long run. “You either do it across the whole company or don’t do it at all, because doing it differently for different teams isn’t fair and defeats the point of having a four-day week,” she adds.

Despite the overall positive feedback and improved work-life balance, the policy was not adopted on a permanent basis due to the logistical challenges and additional financial constraints.

“People did want to work harder across the four days to then feel like they’ve got that Friday to relax and turn off properly,” adds Turner, who notes some of the positive changes were maintained when returning to a five-day week, such as fewer meetings on a Friday.

AI has a fundamental role to play in enabling the transition and is already being used by a growing number of businesses to automate and streamline processes, with significant results. According to a study by Tech.co, 24 per cent of organisations with four-day weeks use AI extensively in their operations.

Of those, 72 per cent report high organisational productivity, compared to 55 per cent of respondents who use AI to only a limited extent. Almost 60 per cent of employees using the tech had greater job satisfaction.

“We’re still trying to experiment where it helps create efficiency and speed up processes within the day-to-day, but it is helping us tackle a lot of the more mundane tasks so that we can focus on the things that need a human element,” says Taiyo, who is also considering how to balance the use of AI with the ethical issues surrounding it.

According to Fu, efficiencies gained from AI raise a much larger issue around how productivity gains are shared. Without fair distribution, the digital transition could widen rather than bridge inequalities.

“The idea of a four-day week within the next decade is ambitious, but achievable – if we treat it as part of a wider redesign, renegotiation and re-balance of work, time and value,” she says. “That means coupling shorter working weeks with smarter use of technology, inclusive policies across all sectors, and a shared commitment to ensure that efficiency gains lead to better work and better lives, not deeper divides.”