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There is a simple question at the heart of the four-day working week debate: how much is your Friday worth? - Not philosophically, but financially. If your employer offered you an extra day off every week but knocked 10% off your salary, would you take it? The answer is rather less straightforward than the enthusiastic response to the four-day week might suggest because while people appear to love the idea of working four days, there is one small detail they are surprisingly

Few workplace ideas have generated quite as much excitement as the 100:80:100 four-day working week. The formula is simple: 100% of pay, 80% of working time and 100% of output. In theory, employees work around 32 hours rather than 40, keep their full salary and somehow produce just as much. To supporters, it is the future of work. To sceptics, it sounds suspiciously like a very elaborate way of getting Friday off. A productivity revolution The most enthusiastic media coverage

While most conversations about the four-day work week focus on happier employees, lower stress levels and finally having time to tackle that mountain of laundry, there's another major winner that deserves some attention: the environment. No, giving people an extra day off won't magically reverse climate change overnight. The Earth isn't going to throw us a thank-you parade because we skipped one Monday meeting. But reducing the standard working week could make a meaningful di

The four-day working week is increasingly presented as a solution to some of the problems created by modern employment: burnout, long working hours, poor work-life balance and declining job satisfaction. This is great! Employees work fewer hours, retain their full salary and use productivity gains to maintain output. There is evidence that this model can work. The UK's largest four-day-week trial involved 61 organisations and around 2,900 employees. It reported improvements i

There are two kinds of people whenever someone mentions a four-day work week; the first imagines themselves spending every Friday surfing, writing a novel, learning Italian, training for an ultramarathon and somehow becoming the sort of person who owns a pottery wheel; the second imagines everyone else doing exactly that and quietly resents them. Reality is, as ever, much less cinematic. The biggest surprise from studies of four-day work weeks isn't that people suddenly becom

I'm no hypocrite, so let me start off by saying that the four-day work week does work. In fact, the majority of research suggests it works remarkably well in many organisations; companies have reported happier employees, lower burnout, reduced absenteeism, better staff retention and, in many cases, productivity that stays exactly the same or even improves. It's paradoxical, but it works! Here's the problem: the conversation has become a little... evangelical. Somewhere along

Imagine walking into your manager's office and saying, "I'd like to work 20% fewer hours, keep 100% of my salary, and I'll still get all my work done." Twenty years ago, that conversation would probably have ended with security escorting you back to your desk. Today, however, it's backed by a growing body of evidence that suggests the seemingly impossible might actually be... sensible. The 100:80:100 model—100% pay, 80% of the time, and 100% productivity—has become one of the

There's always some bloke in the office that brags about living in a sleep deficit. Always a "Yeah, I only sleep 5 hours a night. I just don't need sleep." It's usually the same bloke who wears shorts when it's -4 degrees and claims he's not cold. And if you live like that, more power to ya! But the majority of people need 8-10 hours sleep per night and maybe a portable hand-warmer. Modern work has normalised chronic sleep deprivation to the point where bragging about survivi

Running a small business is a bit like spinning plates while someone keeps handing you more plates. Payroll, customers, suppliers, staffing, marketing, invoices, the printer that's somehow jammed itself again—it's relentless. So, when someone cheerfully suggests you let your employees work one day less for the same pay, your first instinct is probably to laugh. Or cry. Possibly both. Because there are some key differences between smaller and larger companies when the 4DWW is

For decades, office workers have perfected a peculiar art form: looking busy. For the 12 people that have read my previous blogs (thanks guys :)), you'll be well aware of how the modern workforce has mastered the strategic calendar block, the "just circling back" email, the meeting that could have been a paragraph, and the paragraph that could have been a sentence. Entire industries have been built around moving information from one PowerPoint slide to another with all the ur

As you might have heard by now, the 4-day work week (4DWW) is kind of a big deal - and a successful one at that! The UK's largest four-day week trial found that 92% of participating companies chose to continue with the model after the pilot ended. Similar results have emerged from trials in North America, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. Productivity generally remained stable, employee wellbeing improved, turnover fell, and businesses somehow managed to survive despite peo

The four-day work week has become the corporate equivalent of sourdough starters and standing desks: everyone talks about it, nobody fully agrees on what it means, and someone on LinkedIn is definitely claiming it changed their life. But beyond the productivity charts and excited CEOs, the really important question is this: Who actually benefits from a four-day work week? And for many diverse groups, that extra day off is not just a lifestyle perk. It can fundamentally change

Someone posted an article from The Guardian on Linkedin last week titled "Experts call for UK four-day week as study links long work hours to obesity". Now, I usually don't get involved in clickbait, paraphrasing news articles, but this (along with the disgruntled comments from Linkedin users) definitely caught my attention... The Article The article from The Guardian references new research presented at the European Congress on Obesity that found countries where people who w

The 4-day work week is back with a vengeance, and so is the research into it! A new early access study from Hopkins, Bardoel, & Djurkovic (Prominent names in 4DWW research) provide us with very interesting findings and practical implications for businesses that are looking to implement a 100:80:100 model into their organisation - and I cannot overstate how exciting this is! The 100:80:100 model of the four-day work week If you're new to the scene, the 100:80:100 model of the

Let’s be honest, who doesn’t want a 4-day work week? Just the idea of having the working week reduced to 4 days while maintaining the same pay is enough to make anyone jump - that is, if you’re an employee. If you’re an employer, on the other hand, you might be a little more cautious when approaching this idea. But whether you’re open to it, considering it, or even closed to the idea of implementing a 4-day work week in your company, then you’re in the right place because her