The 4-day workweek has its detractors, but research shows employees get more sleep — and that can reduce ‘bad job results’
Just like not every CEO buy into remote work, not every business leader thinks a four-day workweek is right for their company. However, employees seem to sleep more when they get extra days off — and that can help with the bottom line.
“Sleep and work compete with each other,” says Christopher Barnes, a professor of management at the University of Washington, told Bloomberg this week. “When you trade sleep for work, that’s the problem. You sacrifice your health and get bad results.”
Juliet Schor, a sociologist and economist at Boston University, is tracking organizations across the globe as they experiment with a four-day week. “Employers are realizing that if they can rethink where people work, they can also rethink the number of days they work,” she says. said in a TED talk This year.
According to her, among workers who switched to four-day sleep, the rate of sleeping less than seven hours per night fell from 42.6% to 14.5%, and they registered 7.58 hours of sleep per night, nearly more than one hour than before. change.
“I’m not surprised people get a little more sleep, but I’m surprised how drastic the changes are,” Schor told Bloomberg.
In survey results Released last month by the UK 4 Days of the Week Campaign, 46% of respondents said their business productivity had “stayed around the same level”, while 34% reported it had “improved”. slightly improved” and 15% said it had “improved significantly. “
Remote work yes, 4 day work week
But skeptics remain, and the four-day week isn’t for everyone, including companies that have shown flexibility by adopting remote work. For example, FleetCor Technologies allows certain employees to work from anywhere, or uses a hybrid model, which it says has not resulted in reduced productivity, based on TechTarget.
But the Atlanta-based company, which processes workforce payments, doesn’t consider a four-day workweek. “Our customers need us seven days a week,” HR director Crystal Williams told TechTarget.
In Congress, progressive California lawmaker Mark Takano introduced the 32-Hour Workweek Act in July. The law won’t penalize companies for not adopting a four-day workweek, but it will encourage them to do the samebecause they will have to pay workers overtime after 32 hours.
“There are economic, political and social upheavals,” Mr Talk to New York Times March. Americans do not “want to go back to the way they were.”
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