(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The four-day workweek could become a fact of life before too long.
Four-day workweeks and remote working are practices that were supercharged by the closure of offices at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Workers decided that they liked the experience, and companies are starting to include shorter workweeks and flexible schedules as part of their recruiting pitch.
A British study recently found that workers were happier, and just as productive, if they worked four days out of the week instead of five.
"Because they didn't have the Monday Blues and the extra time to take care of things that they were interested in doing," said Rick Cobb, Founder of workplace consulting firm Two Discern in Chicago.
Cobb told the WBBM Noon Business Hour that there is precedent for such a change. The six-day workweek used to be the norm, until Henry Ford introduced a five-day workweek in 1926.
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"We used to have a six-day workweek, and then we went to a five-day workweek, with the same concerns we have now about productivity," Cobb said.
Cobb predicts that the four-day week will eventually become the norm. Though, he added, the speed of that transition depends on the number of large companies that have success with the shorter schedule.
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