Is A Four-Day Work Week The Secret To Workplace Happiness?

The four day work week could finally become a reality. Yes, you heard that right. Under new government plans to increase flexible working**,** full-time workers could be given the right to ask their employers to work a four-day week.

According to the plans, which were first reported in the Daily Telegraph, employees would still have to work their full hours to receive their full pay but could request to compress their contracted hours into a shorter working week. Education Minister Baroness Jacqui Smith told LBC that 'flexible working is actually good for productivity,' while explaining the four-day week being considered would allow someone to work 10 hours a day for four days instead of working eight hours a day for five days.

'You're still doing the same amount of work, but perhaps you're doing it in a way that enables you, for example, to need less childcare, to spend more time with your family, to do other things, that encourages more people into the workplace,' she said.

Talk about a four-day week has been steadily increasing since the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced us to rethink traditional ways of working. Back in 2022, it was announced that more than 30 companies in the UK would take part in a pilot of a four-day working week to 'herald in a bold new way of working in 2022.' The six-month trial was led by 4 Day Week Global, and attempted to measure whether workers can operate at 100% productivity for 80% the time. Employees were paid for the same amount as if they were working five days a week.

The results speak for themselves. According to a report published by the think tank Autonomy and leading academics at the University of Cambridge and Boston College in the US, over the six-month trial period, stress and burnout for employees both significantly declined with 71% of employees reporting lower levels of burnout. Plus, reported levels of anxiety, fatigue and sleep issues decreased, while mental and physical health both experienced improvements.

For many people, a four-day work week is already a part of their everyday lives. While their experiences differ, there is a common goal – a flexible work-life balance and ultimately happiness. Sophie Baron, Founder of homemade baby food brand Mamamade, reiterates that work is not about the hours but the quality of the work. In fact she says at her workplace staff are more committed when given this kind of flexibility. 'We really focus on output and results, and people feel more motivated to work hard. They feel trusted too, which is a hugely important factor in feeling satisfied in your job,' she said.

Sophie acknowledges Grazia's The Juggle for becoming more knowledgable about how astronomically high childcare costsare in the UK. 'In previous jobs I felt like sometimes I was just working to cover the cost of childcare and not actually progressing in my career. It's a terrible feeling,' she shared.

'Parenting itself isn't difficult, what's difficult is when you're trying to parent and do other things at the same time, like getting the house in order. That mental load becomes truly unbearable, and you do burnout. She concludes that this becomes a never-ending cycle of inefficiency. 'It does affect how you perform at work which then has a knock on affect on how you parent. I really feel strongly about this model for promoting output over hours,' she added.

However, not everybody who work's a 4-day week transitioned to the change as smoothly. Kat Bailey, Founder of Music PR company The Mother Lode, found it hard to condition herself out of the 5 day week routine. 'When I first started doing four days, it was so weird because at 44 years old, I'm so used to doing five days a week. My brain was just nagging at me saying, "you're not working to your full potential," and it was actually really bad for my mental health.'

So, Kat decided to go back to a five-day week and although the overthinking stopped, she found she was ineffective at work. 'By the time I got to Thursday, my brain was so tired and my attention span was shorter... the burnout was bad.'

She believes that when an employer makes a decision to provide a four day work week, they're saying they take your mental health seriously and understand that there needs to be a work life balance. 'There's just a better work culture today, we don't have to do what we were doing 10, 20 or 50 years ago, everything has changed.' Kat adds, 'Mental health is so important, especially after everything that we've gone through the last few years, everyone's feeling the pressure.'

And statistics reflect just that. A December 2021 studyby The Government's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) showed that in 2020/21 stress, depression or anxiety accounted for 50% of all work-related ill health cases. Of the 822,000 workers suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2020/21 an estimated 449,000 reported that this was caused or made worse by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Furthermore, the most recent data shows that compared to all workers, females overall had statistically significantly higher rates of work-related stress, depression or anxiety.

Amber O’Brien, registered Mental Health Nurse and Founder of Headworks - a company specialising in workplace wellbeing, echoed these sentiments. She believes that the four day work week is a fantastic idea and that it's vital for companies start advocating for the wellbeing of their employees. She explains, 'Our brains are not designed to work for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. In fact, employees working a 5 day week are ‘productive’ for around 3 hours per day on average. If we try to ‘overwork’ our bodies send us clear signals to stop - we fidget, become foggy and fatigued, maybe even irritable.'

Amber reveals that ignoring these signals could make us worse off, ' We start relying on caffeine, sugar, or even our own stress hormones to keep us going, which may work in the short term, but ultimately make us more tired and stressed - and less productive. Long term, this can lead to burnout, mental, and physical health problems.'

She reinforces that a healthy work/life balance is vital for our wellbeing to enjoy other areas of out life. The need to create space for ourselves and connect with family and friends are just as integral to our emotional wellbeing. Amber concludes, 'The change could seem a little daunting to employers, but people are really starting to open their eyes to the fact that a happier workforce is a much more productive one.'

Which companies offer a four-day working week ?

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