The most surprising benefits of a 4-day workweek, from researcher who’s studied thousands of cases

Juliet Schor has been examining the benefits of less work for decades. In 1992, he published his first book on “Overworked American”.

He hit a nerve: the book landed him to the best -selling list of the New York Times, with his big name CEOs, and Washington landed on the phone with the policy makers on DC. It plans to try shorter working days and working weeks.

2020 events change everything. Covid-19 PANDEM and widespread loss of life were combined with the revitalization of how people lived and their work, and many people lived the life that many people wanted to lead, and this was not stress and burnout extremely working life, Sch Schor says.

Schor in recent years, Economist and Sociology Professor Boston College chief researcher A global business leader and expert group examining the effects of a shortened working week on companies and employees in a 4 -day week.

In the summer of 2024, the US, Canada, Ireland, the UK, Australia and more, 245 organizations and more than 8,700 employees, primarily a four -day week -long weekly experiments using a four -day and 32 -hour week -old model without a decrease in wage.

The employees scored higher work-life balances after shortening their weeks; They experienced less burnout, stress and anxiety and better mental and physical health. Work profits increased and turnover disappeared.

Schor compiled these findings in his last book “Four Days a week” and spoke about his conversation with CNBC. Here, the biggest surprises of the experiments, the more companies can not try the shortened week, whether they can lead to payment deductions, and how the AI progress fits the picture.

CNBC this: What are the most surprising results you have seen from the Four -Day Working Week experiments?

Schor: The big jump in the reported efficiency is quite striking.

Beyond maintaining productivity, people feel much better. They feel above their work and lives and are not stressful. They feel healed when they come to work on Monday morning. They feel more enthusiastic to do business. They feel they can.

They have a great positive impact on the productivity coup, they feel very good about the quality of business, and this is an unexpected positive effect on general welfare.

I thought it would rise to the second business. Not. In fact, it falls on average. People really take that day for themselves.

The work speed was not accelerated. You would think everyone really worked hard in these four days to get everything. But this is the reorganization of a business throughout the company.

If the four -day working week is very good for businesses and employees, why doesn’t it make more space?

I think the answer is the same answer: Why do so many companies work so hard to bring people back to the office when companies don’t want to go back and companies are really successful?

I think there are two things: First, if they give people more time, companies have a feeling that they should give up control. Management doesn’t like it. For some of the tasks of return to shoulder, more than the performance of control is more than what.

Second, he feels radical and risky. Therefore, it helps that companies pass through a six -month or year pilot and see how they go. The five -day week is very rooted.

On the other hand, it develops very clearly on Friday. On Friday, less and less work is being done. Most companies do not reorganize something for summer on Fridays, but only then to people. You don’t lose the efficiency of the whole day, because it’s a less productive day. We’re moving away from the entire Friday working day. I think we need to accelerate this process.

Can four -day working week companies pay less to their employees?

You cannot reduce payment to be in our experiments. This is a necessity.

I don’t think it will work to stop paying. People hate non -voluntary wage discounts. Some people may ask for less work balance for less money. But mostly, people have commitments for the money they currently have at any time. Many people in our economy do not gain enough and are therefore struggling to meet their needs. I think the administration would only be very stupid to try to get money from people, because they will hate it.

The standard payment model says that people should buy regardless of their productivity. Therefore, in this four -day week, where you do not see a decrease in productivity, you should not have a change in wages.

We also see that people stop quitting four -day jobs. Resignation rates go to almost zero in most of these companies. It can benefit from management and decide to give lower wage increases over time. I think this is possible as more companies do. However, the tendency of accommodation against it is that they adopt artificial intelligence that makes people much more productive. And so the standard models say that they should get wage increases as a result.

Can AI accelerate the four -day working week? Can he eliminate things?

If you are changing work with technology, it’s really hard to keep everyone at work. And increasingly, economists find that AI’s potential for business killing is really high.

We are facing two possibilities. First: We leave a large number of people and I don’t think we can reuse all of them on time. Then we have an economic disaster.

Or: We slowly reduce hours per work, so that as people become more productive, we do not stop employment, we only allow people to spend less time at work.

If you have this increase in productivity from artificial intelligence, it can give people more free time, in which case their income remains more or less the same. Or more work and more money.

However, if you have an increase in productivity, companies cannot expand so much. What if you can suddenly produce twice as much? Is there someone who will get it twice as much? Where does all this demand come from?

The labor market is currently not suitable for workers. Is there really acceleration in the current environment of four -day working week?

Currently, a very complicated picture in the labor market. For some professions, it is difficult to find a job for artificial intelligence causes or others. However, there are others that employers have difficulty filling positions and do not bring people back to the office. Latest data Hours Working at Home Really stable. They just don’t go down.

Of course, if we have a great stagnation, then many things change. But I think we’re still on a road to progress in this direction.

Stress, burnout, separation, people struggling in their work and so on. And I think these four -day week creates a constant acceleration to normalize.

The purpose of these experiments is ultimately to make the four -day working week a national standard according to the law?

In order to determine the legal work week in 32 hours, I reached the president of a manufacturing company in our Bernie Sanders invoice invoice to change the Fair Working Standards Law. This person’s answer was: I believe it very much. It was really great for my company. But I don’t believe legislative.

Typically, you need more acceleration to achieve such a major change in the labor law where you see more of this practice throughout the economy. Like the Family and Medical Permit Act, many companies started it before becoming a national standard. So we need larger companies to show how suitable it is. And then my personal opinion is that you need a legislation to withdraw Laggard.

The interview was arranged and intensified in terms of clarity.

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