Opinion | The rise of a four-day work week

A four-day work week is a new idea that some companies are trying out. And even though it sounds like it would result in a lost day in productivity, maybe they’re onto something. Illustration by WYATT LINCOLN, illustrator

We work from Monday to Friday. Saturdays and Sundays are for rest and fun. This is a fundamental truth of the world I grew up in. But it looks like the world is changing. And I think we’re overdue.

Emilia Cuevas Diaz, opinions editor

The pandemic radically changed our world in many ways. Due to the quarantines that were implemented, a lot of people had to work from home. And because they spent more time in their house, they got to see their families more or pursue their hobbies.

But now that things are going back to normal, people are being asked to go back to working the same way they did before the pandemic. And workers are not having it. After years of feeling like they had limited time outside of work, quarantine felt like a refreshing change of pace for some who were not willing to go back to the typical 9 to 5 in office work times.

Soon after things started going back to normal, there was a phenomenon known as “the great resignation,” in which workers left their jobs en masse looking for opportunities that offered better pay, flexible hours and healthy work environments. 

In an attempt to counter this, the idea of a four-day work week was proposed, which gave workers an extra day off. 

As it happens, I had a four-day work week this semester. Or more like I have no Friday classes. And let me tell you, I can definitely see the appeal. 

Compared to past semesters, I felt like I had so much more time in my hands. I’ve been able to hang out with friends, get some rest and work on personal projects in a way that I wasn’t able to before. 

It’s not even like I had less work to do, but you’d be surprised at the amount of things you can get out of the way with one extra weekend day that just free up the time for you to be able to fully enjoy the rest. 

Having a four-day week allowed me to space out my assignments so they wouldn’t overwhelm me as much and still make time to hang out with friends and have fun. And if the extra weekend day made a difference to me as a student, I can’t even imagine what it would mean for a working person. Luckily, I don’t have to.

In 2022, a six-month trial was conducted with several companies in the U.K. in which they had four-day work weeks with no loss of pay.

The participating companies ranged from marketing to nonprofits and the way they implemented the four-day work week was different depending on the needs of each specific company, with some shutting down all together for an extra day and others having their employees take alternate days off, while others calculated the 32-hour work week on a yearly scale and adjusted longer and shorter times according to the needs of the company.

After the trial, 92% of companies who participated in the trial decided to continue the four-day work week in different ways, with some extending the trial and others implementing it as a new permanent policy.  

Similarly, most employees said that they would need at least a 10% pay increase to consider going back to a five-day work week, with some even going as far as saying that no amount of money would make them go back to working five days a week. 

During the trial not only did the companies report no loss in productivity, but they actually increased their revenue. And the benefits to employees were huge: having a four-day work week reduced stress, increased employees morale and even helped them save money on things like childcare.

Overall, it seems like the four-day week trial was a success and employees widely benefited from this format. I know a lot of people who after the pandemic decided that their priorities should not be at work and made some adjustments. One of my cousins negotiated only going to his office once a week instead of daily after he realized that the only reason he was there for his daughter's first steps was because he was working remotely. 

At the end of the day, everything should not be about our work. There is no reason why we should not be able to have a life outside of going to the office. We shouldn’t have to wait until we are retired to be able to enjoy life. And if the companies are not negatively impacted, I don’t see why they wouldn’t make the change to a four-day work week.