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Keeping the same pay while working fewer hours sounds like a dream too good to be true, but researchers in Iceland are making the case it could benefit workers and have no ill effects on productivity for businesses.
The trials also found that productivity either remained the same or improved at a majority of the workplaces that implemented the shortened 35- to 36-hour workweek.
“It shows that the public sector is ripe for being a pioneer of shorter working weeks — and lessons can be learned for other governments,” he added.
According toAlda, the 2,500 workers in the experiment accounts for one percent of the country’s working population.
The results of the trials have led to 86 percent of the country’s workforce working shorter hours or gaining the right to reduce the amount of time they work, the group said.
“The Icelandic shorter working week journey tells us that not only is it possible to work less in modern times, but that progressive change is possible too,” Gudmundur Haraldsson, a researcher at Alda, explained to BBC.
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While the four-day workweek may not become the norm in the United States anytime soon, there are some companies that have made the bold leap to give it a chance.
The social media management company, Buffer, cut their workweek down to four days during the COVID-19 pandemic, according toThe Atlantic. After the change, employees found they got an equal amount of work done in a shorter amount of time. The change also had an immediate and positive effect on their lives.
“Before, Saturday felt like my recovery day, and then Sunday, we would try to jam two or three days of a weekend into one day, and I was exhausted on Monday,” Buffer employee Nicole Miller told the outlet. “[A shorter week] gives the rest of your life a little bit more of a chance.”
source: people.com
