UK kicks off 4-day week on trial basis. A report card of countries that toyed with shorter workweeks

UK has kicked off the trial of a four-day week from Monday. Touted to be the world’s largest trial, the pilot program has more than 3,300 workers at 70 UK companies participating in it. Employees from different sectors ranging from a local fish and chip shop to large financial firms will work for lesser hours with no loss of pay.

The 4-Day Week UK Pilot Programme is being organised by 4-Day Week Global in partnership with researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College and think tank Autonomy. The pilot project will run for six months and measure the productivity and wellbeing of employees during the period.

During the trial, employees will get 100 percent pay for 80 percent of the hours they usually work in exchange for a commitment to give 100 percent productivity.

According to a BBC report, office-based software developers, recruitment firms, charities and even local fish and chip shops are participating in the programme.

Sam Smith, co-founder of Pressure Drop Brewery in Tottenham, told BBC that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced people to rethink the way they work and organise their lives. “We're doing this to improve the lives of our staff and be part of a progressive change in the world that will improve people's mental health and wellbeing," Smith said.

UK’s trial is part of the worldwide initiative and smaller trials that are being run in the US, Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Here’s a look at some of the countries experimenting or have experimented with a four-day work week.

In February, Belgium joined a host of other countries in offering a four-day workweek to employees. The reform package was announced by Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo, who said the employee empowerment policy would make the rigid labour market more flexible and people and businesses stronger after two difficult years of the pandemic. However, unlike other countries, the new work regime in Belgium states that workers will have to put in 10 hours of work per day instead of the current eight hours. The new work regime is available to those who opt for it.

Scotland is testing the four-day workweek with the state supporting companies with 10 million pounds. In Scotland, work hours have been cut by 20 percent with no loss of pay.

In Wales, Sophie Howe, the Future Generations Commissioner, has asked the government to introduce a similar workweek trial, at least for public sector companies.

Iceland witnessed an "overwhelming success" of its trials of a four-day week in 2021 with many workers opting for shorter spells. The country had tested the shorter workweek between 2015 and 2019 in over 2,500 people. Workers were allowed to work for 35 to 36-hour workweeks without pay cuts. According to researchers, the productivity of the workers remained the same or improved in the majority of workplaces during the trial.

Following the success of the pilot program, trade unions in Iceland negotiated permanent cuts in working hours. Around 86 percent of the total workforce in the country opted for a four-day week.

Sweden tested the four-day working week with full pay in 2015 but received a mixed response. Even as left-wing parties thought the project to be too expensive to implement on a large scale, some companies chose to retain the reduced hours for their workers.

In 2022, the UAE became the first nation to adopt a four-and-a-half-day workweek with the weekend for federal government entities starting midday Friday and lasting through Sunday. Employees in the UAE work from 7.30 am to 3.30 pm from Monday to Thursday and from 7.30 am to noon on Fridays.

Although, the four-day workweek program is yet to be implemented in Japan, Microsoft had started a pilot shorter workweek program in 2019. The company received positive results from the experiment.

Similarly, in New Zealand, 81 employees of consumer goods giant Unilever are currently participating in a year-long trial of a four-day workweek at full pay.