Research finds four-day workweek offers many benefits

NEWTON, Mass. — Nine months ago, Francesco Iacovitti opened Market-Tiamo, an Italian specialty store in Newton Center. Since then, he’s been putting in a lot of hours.

“It’s impossible to find people,” Iacovitti said. “It’s like nobody wants to work.”

But Boston College researcher Juliet Schor, PhD, a professor of sociology, suggests there may be a way to help employers struggling to find workers: Reduce the workweek, without reducing pay.

Schor began studying the idea of a 32-hour workweek that pays like 40 during the pandemic. Dozens of companies are now enrolled in a pilot program in which employees are working four days instead of five -- and without a compromise in salary.

“The draw for companies is two-fold,” Schor said. “On the one hand, they’re coping with employees who are stressed out and burned out. The pandemic has really affected workers in the US and all around the world. But the other thing that we’re seeing more of lately is companies who are unable to fill their positions or who are seeing a lot of employees leave. And so it turns out to be a very powerful tool for attracting workers and retaining them.”

Simply put, two days off per week is not enough for many workers.

“I feel like one of those days you’re using to catch up from the week and then there’s one day for fun,” said Abby Zimage, a worker in Newton. “Having three days you have more time for yourself and less time just scrambling for the week ahead.”

And Schor, author of The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, said the idea of the 40-hour workweek is outdated.

“We got a five-day week in the 1930s and here we are, 2023, almost a hundred years later and we’re still with the five-day week,” she said. “And yet think about all the productivity growth we’ve had and incredible advances in technology.”

Schor said her studies have so far shown no loss in productivity -- and numerous positive gains.

“What we found in our surveys is stress is down, burn-out is down, physical health is reported to be better,” she said. “Mental health better, positive emotions more, negative emotions less, less fatigue, exercising more and better sleep.”

Absenteeism and resignations are also down in the companies with four-day-a-week schedules, she said.

But how can employees cram five days of work into four? The simple truth is some companies waste a lot of time.

“They have a lot of dysfunctional stuff going on,” Schor said. “The biggest thing that we find is that they change their meeting cultures. White-collar employees in this country spend inordinate amounts of time in meetings.”

Other companies are working to reduce distractions, Schor said. And finally, employee appointments, which used to be taken during the work day, can now be moved to that third day off.

Of course, not every profession can squeeze five days of work into four. In health care, that would be impossible, Schor said. “They’re already working with too much work intensity.”

Still, she sees a definite plus to hospitals moving to the four-day week.

“They are losing a lot of people to burnout, which is expensive for companies and society,” Schor said. One of the things we’ve seen in high burnout professions, where they go to four days and they hire a new person for the fifth day, is that a lot of that additional salary can get offset by the savings of not losing people, not having to train new people not having to pay higher health care benefits for the people whose health is being destroyed by their jobs.”

Schor’s research helped inspire a recent move by the Maryland State Legislature to consider a bill that would incentivize employers who move to a four-day week. In the meantime, Schor’s research goes on, with several new companies just enrolled in the reduced-schedule study.

“I think you can say that our system has been really dysfunctional,” Schor said. “The burden that the American worker is toiling under... you could say it’s an outrage.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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