A four-day work week sounds great for employees, but can it really be better for employers too? Scientific results suggest the answer could be "yes."
A new study in Iceland analyzed what a four-day work week would mean for productivity and employee morale.
The project, which studied 2,500 workers in the country's capital city Reykjavík, characterized the results as an "all measures, overwhelming success."
Christine Emba, columnist with the Washington Post, wrote an Op-Ed on Wednesday that advocated for the reduced hours. She argued that beyond the workplace benefits, the four-day week allows people to focus on what really is important.
"(The Iceland study) framed (the results) in terms of employee well-being, employees having more time to attend to their own lives, to see family, to form community. Two things that make them fuller human beings," Emba told KCBS Radio on Thursday. "I argue that that’s even more important than the productivity gains or stability that the study also found."
"I think what’s more important (about the study’s results) is not the productivity gained, but actually more people feeling good in their lives. Being able to be the full humans and experience the fullness of life that they missed when they were at work all the time," she explained.
The pandemic forced employers to adjust how their workplaces operate by both changing employee hours and where they work from. As a result, people became enlightened to a different way of living while also gaining greater perspective on what their priorities should be, in what Emba describes as a "broader mindset shift."
"COVID-19 upended this traditional, office working life," Emba said. "People realized that they could be working from home, that they could be working less. That was actually something that was possible, and, in fact, great."
"We’ve begun to realize how much things outside of work matter to us. Why don’t we prioritize them in the same way as we prioritize offering up our labor to someone else?" she added.
A handful of countries are already beginning to consider this new reality. Japan has recommended it in its new economic policy guideline and both Spain and New Zealand are working on their own plans.
Could the U.S. be next?
Emba was not sure, but she said she’s hopeful that after a year and a half full of "burnout, pain and difficulty, that something has to give."
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