The global trend toward a four-day workweek has gained considerable momentum since the COVID-19 pandemic, with trials and policy discussions underway in regions including the UK, Iceland, the UAE, Russia, India, Singapore, Belgium, and the US.

While adoption remains partial—with most transitions occurring as experiments or within selected sectors—public discourse and employer interest have markedly increased in recent years.

There is consistent evidence from diverse pilots and surveys that a four-day workweek yields significant benefits for employees and employers.

Large-scale UK trials involving more than 60 organizations and approximately 3,000 workers found substantial improvements in employee well-being, including higher reported happiness, reduced stress and burnout, and improved sleep quality.

These pilots also documented measurable business advantages—revenues increased by up to 35%, recruitment and retention improved, and absenteeism declined.

Most participating organizations signaled intent to continue the four-day schedule post-trial.

Similar successes have been reported in Iceland, where public sector trials saw reductions in workplace stress, absenteeism, and staff exhaustion, alongside heightened organizational commitment.

In the UAE, reduced workweeks are associated with improved health and more family and leisure time among residents.

In India, 100% of surveyed employees and well over half of surveyed employers support the model for its positive effect on morale, job satisfaction, and work-life balance.

Efforts in the US show rising adoption, with a quarter of surveyed companies having implemented or planning a four-day workweek, emphasizing higher satisfaction and lower turnover .

Environmental impacts represent an additional benefit.

Evidence from multiple pilots and policy reviews suggests that a four-day workweek can contribute to reduced carbon emissions and resource consumption.

Office closures for an extra day lead to energy savings—lower heating, cooling, and lighting demands—while fewer commutes reduce overall transportation emissions.

Even when remote work is not feasible, compressed operations can result in measurable declines in corporate energy use, aligning with wider climate and sustainability goals.

However, the magnitude of these environmental benefits can vary depending on the size of the workforce, local infrastructure, and the sector involved.

It is important to distinguish between different four-day workweek models.

The most progressive implementations reduce total weekly work hours (for example, dropping from 40 to 32 hours), aiming to preserve productivity with less time spent at work—a model often called “100:80:100,” where workers receive 100% pay for 80% of the time, in return for maintaining 100% productivity.

By contrast, some countries, such as Belgium, or some employer pilots, offer a compressed workweek where employees work the same total weekly hours, typically by increasing daily hours but reducing the number of workdays.

These two approaches have materially different implications.

Actual hour reductions are more likely to yield pronounced well-being, work-life, and environmental gains, but can pose greater challenges for business output and scheduling.

Compressed schedules may make it easier to sustain output and coverage but risk fatigue due to longer days, with possibly limited positive impact on overall stress or quality of life .

Despite its promise, the four-day workweek model faces substantive barriers:

Business Continuity and Sector-Specific Barriers: Sectors requiring continual operation, high levels of client interaction, or real-time response (e.g., healthcare, retail, emergency services) struggle with reduced-hour scheduling.

Office-based or project-driven roles adapt more easily, but service organizations with heterogeneous workforces face complex rescheduling issues.

Employers have cited the risk that staffing costs and administrative burdens—such as increased hiring to fill shifts—may offset any productivity or well-being gains.

Some organizations find that longer working days, required by compressed hourly models, may increase fatigue and erode the benefits of an extra day off.

These operational difficulties are echoed in Russia, Belgium, and Singapore, where pilot programs and policy debates have highlighted the mixed productivity and employee satisfaction results under compressed schedules .

Workforce Equity: There is increasing recognition that four-day policies may primarily benefit salaried, higher-income, or knowledge-economy workers.

Hourly, frontline, or contract workers can be disadvantaged, receiving few if any additional benefits, or being expected to work longer days for the same or marginally higher pay.

In customer-facing or manually intensive sectors, both reduced hours and compressed schedules are more difficult to implement equitably, and may exacerbate pay and benefit disparities.

Implementation in these areas requires careful policy design to avoid unintended negative impacts on the most vulnerable employees .

Legal and Regulatory Challenges: The transition to a four-day workweek often encounters legal hurdles related to national or sectoral labor regulations, including statutory minimum and maximum working hours, overtime rules, pay and benefit protections, and union contract terms.

For example, compressed schedules may conflict with legal maximum daily working hours, or changes in workweek structure may require renegotiation of labor agreements.

In some jurisdictions, hourly workers must be paid overtime for extended shifts, complicating implementation and raising costs.

Additionally, countries lacking flexible labor laws may not enable sector-specific approaches, making it difficult to pilot or scale reduced-hour workweeks across the broader economy .

Unsuccessful initiatives and negative outcomes are less widely reported, but some case studies highlight limitations.

In Belgium, the approach to a four-day week has involved compressing hours into fewer days rather than reducing them overall.

Reports from these trials indicate high variability in worker satisfaction: some employees appreciated the extended weekends, but others struggled with increased daily pressures, and a subset reported burnouts due to prolonged single-day work demands.

Similarly, in Russian firms, a minority of employers noted no productivity improvements and anticipate reductions in pay or expensive staff increases if jobs require continuous coverage.

These challenges have slowed momentum for broader adoption in less adaptable sectors .

Successful adoption of a four-day workweek is most likely when companies thoughtfully align the implementation model to the sector’s operational realities, invest in transparent workforce planning and communication, and ensure regular review of well-being and business outcomes.

Incremental, sector-specific pilots have proven the most effective strategy, allowing organizations to assess real productivity and quality-of-life effects before deciding on broader adoption.

In conclusion, the global trend toward a four-day workweek is underpinned by strong evidence of benefits for employee well-being, productivity, recruitment, and—where actual hour reductions are pursued—environmental impact.

However, substantial barriers related to business continuity, workforce equity, and especially legal and regulatory frameworks remain.

Distinctions between compressed schedules and actual reductions in work hours are critical, as each presents different trade-offs in terms of employee wellness, operational practicality, and societal benefits.

Continued experimentation, careful policy design, and close attention to both sectoral needs and legal context will be required for sustainable expansion of the four-day workweek model.

The global trend toward a four-day workweek has gained considerable momentum since the COVID-19 pandemic, with trials and policy discussions underway in regions including the UK, Iceland, the UAE, Russia, India, Singapore, Belgium, and the US.

Title:

Content: Four-day workweek’s popularity grew during the pandemic — survey

As companies scrambled during the COVID-19 outbreak to reorient their workplace procedures and processes, one idea that gained ground was a shorter workweek.

More businesses adopted a four-day week during the COVID-19 pandemic as the shift to remote working spurred a major rethinking of work practices, according to a poll of senior leaders at 500 UK businesses by the University of Reading’s Henley Business School.

The survey, an update to research from 2019, showed that 21% of respondents adopted a four-day workweek for all staff in 2021, up from 18% in 2019. The majority of respondents (65%) said a four-day workweek is in place for at least some of their workers, up from 50% who said that in 2019. A four-day workweek is defined in the report as involving a reduction from five to four workdays for the same pay or a compressed workweek with the same hours across four days instead of five.

Though a four-day workweek has gained popularity, the UK numbers are perhaps higher than expected; job posting site Indeed told Computerworld that less than 1% of job postings on March 11 included the term “four-day week,” for example. A Gallup survey of full-time U.S. employees in March 2020 — prior to the pandemic — indicated that only 5% put in four days a week, with the vast majority (84%) working five days (and 11% working six days each week).

That said, numerous organizations have adopted or trialled a shorter workweek for staff since the start of the pandemic, including firms such as Atom Bank, Bolt, Buffer, and Kickstarter. And pilot projects are under way in several countries, including the US, UK, and Spain.

Such projects are not new, of course; Microsoft launched a trial at its Japan offices in 2019 that resulted in higher productivity, for example, while the UK’s Wellcome Trust ran into issues around complexity with its own project the same year.

A shorter workweek has been talked about for decades, but a shift from the five-day, 40-hour week that has been the standard for over a century has so far failed to gain momentum.

What’s behind the recent interest in the idea? One reason is that the widespread, and largely successful, shift to remote work during the pandemic showed the benefits of a more flexible approach to work, said Rita Fontinha, associate professor in Strategic Human Resource Management at the University of Reading’s Henley Business School.

“The pandemic led to a situation where most firms were forced to implement remote work and this has accelerated previous discussions that we have been having over the last two decades on flexible working,” said Fontinha. “Working from home led to increased trust [between employers and employees] and awareness of other ways of measuring performance that go beyond presenteeism. The pandemic showed that flexibility works.”

Report highlights four-day week advantages

The Henley Business School survey pointed to several advantages for businesses that implemented a four-day workweek, including costs savings (66%), improved productivity (64%), better quality output from staff (64%), and  less-stressed workers (78%).

Improved employee wellbeing is connected to business outcomes too, said Jack E. Gold, founder and principal analyst at research firm J. Gold Associates.

“Keeping employees happy and motivated makes for far more productive employees, no matter what hours they work,” said Gold. “Maximizing employee productivity is a much more important way to gain business value than hours worked.”

Another benefit, noted by 68% of survey respondents that had adopted a four day week, involved hiring and retention. “People were less likely to take sick leave, people were more productive, and it was easier to attract new staff, and to retain them,” said Fontinha.

The so-called Great Resignation is also likely contributing to interest in a shorter workweek.

“What’s different now than prior to the pandemic is that we’re seeing a temporary spike in the difficulty that firms are having in hiring and retaining workers, and the four-day work week is a relatively easy benefit to extend to help ease the challenge in the short term,” said David Brodeur-Johnson, principal analyst at research firm Forrester.

A shorter workweek can mean challenges

The survey also highlighted several challenges around implementing a shorter workweek, though employer concerns have softened during the pandemic.

Among companies that did not offer a four-day week, 65% said they were worried staffing costs would outweigh any productivity benefits (though that number was down from 80%). The biggest challenge cited by employers was meeting customer demands (75%), while 70% thought a shorter week would be too complicated to manage.

Some companies may find a switch to a four-day week easier than others, said Fontinha. IT-focused firms are more likely to switch, she said, largely due to the relative ease with which tech worker output can be tracked in comparison with other roles. “Areas where we were less likely to see the four-day week were sectors that involve contact with customers, or healthcare, for example,” she said.

A shorter workweek is also more suited to companies with a relatively homogenous workforce in terms of job roles, she said, meaning large businesses with a diverse workforce may find a short workweek complicated to roll out. At the same time, the smallest companies might not have the resources to support the shift, said Fontinha, adding that there are steps all businesses can take to implement a four-day week, even if they are more gradual.

“Having this overnight shift to a four-day working week will be hard for smaller firms,” she said. “What we suggest is a progressive reduction in working hours, moving towards a four-day working week by assessing how things are going and how needs are being met, how productive people are.”

Even if the benefits outweigh the costs for many, businesses should consider their reasons for moving to a four-day week. While a shorter week provides clear benefits to work/life balance and employee wellbeing, Brodeur-Johnson warns against adopting a four-day week as a shortcut to improving employee experience. “[T]he science is clear that what really engages people is being able to make progress in meaningful work every day; to know that they can and are succeeding,” he said.

“Employee experience peaks when we can leave work knowing that we made a difference, and had a really good day," he said. "It also comes from having a supportive manager, a supportive team environment, and feeling recognized and seen uniquely for the work that we do.

“All of these things are much harder for businesses to do for their people, because it involves behavior changes, manager development, culture changes, deeper resourcing and more that a four-day work week won’t solve on its own.”

Copyright © 2022 IDG Communications, Inc.

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While adoption remains partial—with most transitions occurring as experiments or within selected sectors—public discourse and employer interest have markedly increased in recent years.

Title:

Content: Since June 1 this year, more than 3,000 employees from more than 60 companies in the United Kingdom have conducted a social experiment with a six-month “four-day work ”.
Since 2018, the non-profit organization of "4 Day Week Global" wants to test whether the public interest of "80% working time - 100% wages - 100% productivity" and "three days off a week, labor and management win" really exists.
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak so far in 2020, many enterprises have adopted the method of “working from home, diverting work ”, and in the long process of the epidemic, working from home and working from home has become an emerging work style.
Since the end of the epidemic this year, many countries have returned to their original or new jobs, whether they are blue-collar and white-collar workers who have left or changed jobs.
However, in more than two years, the transformation of various workplaces in the enterprise to survive, and the labor compromise of "unpaid leave + retained work" have made more and more pioneer projects of "four days a week", and the industry category has become more and more diversified, becoming a new opportunity to promote.
Among them, the most representative is Iceland.
According to media reports in the middle of last year: “The three-day weekend experiment in Iceland has been a success, and workers ’ happiness and productivity have improved ”; the reason for this is:“ Employees face less workplace stress, anxiety, depression and exhaustion, and therefore work harder and take fewer sick days; workers feel more leisure time, and therefore are more committed to their work. ”
This conclusion, in addition to the ethical questions of the willingness of enterprises and workers to participate, and whether or not to remain anonymous, also requires the testing of more rigorous research methods, such as the length of the experiment, whether the industry type and size of the experiment is consistent, and the working tolerance of the workers involved in the experiment, are worthy of further investigation.
On the other hand, the three-day experiment, the success stories of Iceland, New Zealand, and British Columbia, Canada, did not clearly describe the type of industry, the development of the industry in each country, and whether the size of the enterprises in the industry varies greatly.
In addition, across all continents of the world, countries have different levels of economic development, industrial structures have their own characteristics, and the government originally conferred statutory labor rights and interests, are also different.
In addition to industries that are not suitable for at-home work, the sense of alienation of human relationships, the synergy of face-to-face communication, and whether innovation requires teamwork have become the focus of discussion.
On the front page of the “Four Days a Week Worldwide ” website, the home page shows where the current pioneer projects are located on every continent around the world. Surprisingly, Central and South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia each launched at least five projects, but in Canada and the United States, there is only one pilot project.
Moreover, the website reveals that “working four days a week makes 78% of employees feel happier and less stressed. ”
It can also be seen that not only developed countries are promoting, in fact, more developing countries are also conducting experiments.
While there is a lack of a more convincing description of the experimental design, it is clear that this is indeed a possible new type of workplace.
Because of this, in addition to the pilot of national enterprises to cooperate with international non-profit organizations, there are also governments taking the lead in responding.
Spain ’ s leftist political party, once launched a “three days off ” policy in 2021, and the Spanish government agreed to test the new work system of“ 32 hours per week (8 hours per day) ” on a limited scale. 200 companies are willing to participate, and 3,000 to 6,000 workers benefit.
The result of such a trial gives more room for imagination to "take three days off every week, and employees will win both."
The social experiment of "80% of working hours - 100% of wages - 100% of productivity" has important policy significance for the harmony of labor relations and the long-term development of the economy.
"High working hours" does not mean "high productivity", which is the general consensus of the current society.
"Shorten working hours, wages unchanged", helps companies retain employees, perhaps without controversy; but whether it can also maintain 100% of the work output is questioned by the business community.
After the epidemic, "three days off a week, labor and management win" is applicable to some specific industry categories, and the nature of the work of individual employees may also be more widely distributed in various industries.
And the flexibility of working hours, the heterogeneity of the workplace, the universalization of work dispatch, and even the high expectations of the young generation for "enterprise decentralization" are all the help of "working four days a week", which may be a major challenge for enterprises in the future.
# Work # Employee # Business # Home # 4 Days

There is consistent evidence from diverse pilots and surveys that a four-day workweek yields significant benefits for employees and employers.

What did  the trial of 4-day workwee in New Zealand show?

The productivity  increased
The employees were happier

What did a survey on 4-day workweek conducted in Hong Kong show?

61% of respondents said employers could implement a four-day workweek to improve employees' mental health.

What did surveys conducted in London before and after the experiment of 4-day workweek  find?

54% of employees had better balance of work and home responsibilities

What do employers in India think of 4-day workweek?

What has a Gallup Poll found out about the prospect of 4-day workweek?

77% of American employees believe that it will have a positive impact on their health

46% of American employees said it will have an "extremely positive" impact.

What has the implementation 4-day wrokweek in Dubai, UAE indicated?

Increase in employee and customer satisfaction.

Large-scale UK trials involving more than 60 organizations and approximately 3,000 workers found substantial improvements in employee well-being, including higher reported happiness, reduced stress and burnout, and improved sleep quality.

Title:

Content: Ina Opperman
Business Journalist
3 minute read
26 Feb 2023
10:00 am

Largest 4-day week trial results good news for future of work

Ina Opperman

Will a 4-day workweek work? It seems that employees and employers are happy.

The results of the world’s largest 4-day week trial is good news for the future of work, with new research showing that these results are largely in line with existing global evidence, further demonstrating the benefits of reduced-hour, output-focused working.

The pilot programme conducted in the UK by non-profit 4 Day Week Global, the UK’s 4-Day Week Campaign and think tank Autonomy, guided over 60 companies and almost 3 000 workers through a six-month trial of a 4-day week, with no loss of pay for workers.

This brings the global campaign’s total number of completed pilot participants to 91 companies and approximately 3 500 employees. Lead researcher, professor Juliet Schor of Boston College, says overall results show that almost every organisation will stick to a 4-day week after the trial, with 91% definitely continuing or planning to continue and another 4% leaning towards continuing. Only 4% of participants are definitely not continuing.

Participating companies rated their overall experience of the trials at an average of 8.5/10, with business productivity and business performance each scoring 7.5/10. Revenue increased by 35% over the trial periods when compared to similar periods from the previous year, while hiring increased and absenteeism decreased.

ALSO READ: 28 SA companies to implement 4-day work week on 1 March

Improved employee wellbeing and health

During the trial it was also found that the health and wellbeing of employees also improved, with significant increases observed in physical and mental health, time spent exercising and overall life and job satisfaction. Rates of stress, burnout and fatigue all decreased along with problems with sleep.

Even the environmental outcomes were encouraging, with commuting time falling across the full sample by a half hour per week.

Schor says she observed an encouraging consistency in the data, with results largely steady across workplaces of varying sizes, demonstrating this is an innovation which works for many types of organisations.

“There are also some interesting differences. We found that employees in non-profits and professional services had a larger average increase in time spent exercising, while those in construction and manufacturing enjoyed the largest reductions in burnout and sleep problems.”

Behavioural scientist and new CEO of 4-Day Week Global, Dr Dale Whelehan, explained the sample produced interesting differences in gender outcomes. “While men and women benefit from a 4-day week, women’s experience is generally better for burnout, life and job satisfaction, mental health and reduced commuting time.”

ALSO READ: 4-day work week pilot so successful, all participating companies sticking to it

4-day workweek also balances home tasks

Encouragingly, the research also showed that the burden of non-work duties appears to be balancing out, with more men taking on a greater share of housework and childcare.

Co-founder and MD of 4-Day Week Global, Charlotte Lockhart, says her team is delighted to be expanding the arguments in favour of a 4-day week with this new world-class academic research. “We look forward to adding our Australasian pilot results to this data set in the coming weeks and our European, South African, Brazilian and North American results in the coming months.”

4-Day Week Global was founded in New Zealand by entrepreneurs and philanthropists, Andrew Barnes and Charlotte Lockhart, following the world-renowned success of their pioneering trial of the 4-day week in Perpetual Guardian.

Their approach is based on the 100-80-100™ model designed by Lockhart alongside the Perpetual Guardian trial in 2018. That means 100% of the pay, for 80% of the time, in exchange for a commitment to deliver 100% of the output.

4-Day Week Global’s ambition is to make a 4-day week the new default and reduced working time the new standard.

These pilots also documented measurable business advantages—revenues increased by up to 35%, recruitment and retention improved, and absenteeism declined.

How much did some companies' revenue increaseby implementing 4-day workweek?

What did  the trial of 4-day workwee in New Zealand show?

What has the implementation 4-day wrokweek in Dubai, UAE indicated?

Increase in productivity
Increase in work quality indicators

Most participating organizations signaled intent to continue the four-day schedule post-trial.

What do employers in India think of 4-day workweek?

Similar successes have been reported in Iceland, where public sector trials saw reductions in workplace stress, absenteeism, and staff exhaustion, alongside heightened organizational commitment.

In the UAE, reduced workweeks are associated with improved health and more family and leisure time among residents.

Title:

Content: The four-day work week is welcome, but some challenges remain

This shift has thrown up interesting questions on macro and micro levels that over time will need answering

Beta V.1.0 - Powered by automated translation

The sin of presenteeism is shaping up as a pre-pandemic anachronism, and the principal reason for this is not just remote working but an emerging historic global shift towards a shorter working week.

The global headaches from supply constraints following Covid-19 disruption have overshadowed equally profound changes in the labour market. For some bosses, there is rationing not just of the number of workers but the time they are willing to work. As people reassess their work-life balance, responsible employers and some countries are looking at the advantages of compressed hours on the job.

The UAE is a trailblazer in this regard, with most emirates having formally adopted a 4.5-day working model. Sharjah has gone further by opting for a four-day model. Reporting last week in this newspaper found that its residents said they are healthier and happier, enjoying more weekend flexibility and having more time with their families.

Many forecasts over recent years have been very wide of the mark about the economic trajectory of the big developed economies. The Resolution Foundation, a UK-based think tank that looks at work, points out that in analysing the pandemic, “many feared a house price bust, expected the inflation spike to be small/short-lived, said unemployment/insolvencies for workers/firms respectively would surge and claimed this would be a ‘she-cession’. None happened”.

Technology is the driver of all this, and the trend may over time become irresistible

Analysis of Google searches in the UK from an employment agency recently reported the four-day work week had gained popularity among people on the hunt for their next job opportunity. “Google searches for "4 day week jobs" exploded a spectacular 1,011 per cent in early 2022, when compared to 2021,” according to the firm’s research.

One of Britain’s biggest and best-known corporate brands, the department store M&S, has hired a well-known female executive who is a prominent four-day week champion, Katie Bickerstaffe. She said her role was compatible with shorter hours, even though it is a round-the-clock operation.

“We’re a seven-days-a-week, 24-hour operation and that’s what you do, but I’ve always done that [four days] because it gives me the freedom to spend some downtime with my kids and not feel that I don’t have the opportunity to do that during the week,” she explained.

The news coincided with the announcement that 70 UK companies had voluntarily joined a scheme to alter the working week basis of their business. Signing on to a pledge to pay 100 per cent of wages for 80 per cent of the hours worked means much more than just creating new rotas. It means altering the internal working patterns of the business and finding new ways to accommodate latency in the workforce.

Not everyone is convinced this can deliver a kind of workplace nirvana.

The Centre for Policy Studies carried out some research last year that estimated that a four-day week would have a big cost to the economy if productivity levels remained constant. The annual shortfall to the economy would be £45 billion ($55.42bn). On more generous calculations, if a 6 per cent increase in productivity could be achieved in the first decade of the reform, the loss overall could be pared back to £17bn. The analyst behind the figures believes the evidence for productivity gains from compressing hours and having shorter working weeks is extremely limited.

That is not much of an argument for not experimenting with shorter weeks. Employees already job-share and expect work-from-home arrangements throughout the work force. In office-based roles or project work, the flexibility to complete the workload that comes with the job most obviously lends itself to working with a defined, shorter time frame.

There are hurdles for other jobs. Customer-facing roles or service functions will still need to be provided across a far longer time-frame than four days or 32 hours. Unlike in Sharjah, there is no clear directive in the UK for a common day that extends the weekend. Indeed, many people working four days chose a non-consecutive day, such as Wednesday, for the non-working option.

Without the government plumping for Friday as part of a three-day weekend, it is likely that businesses will experience co-ordination both internally and with clients and supplies if substantial numbers in the workforce are missing in action for part of the working week.

There are also concerns around the equality of the development. Can it be true that more flexibility would allow women, in particular, to better balance childcare obligations and thus erode the disadvantage with men?

And as the work-from-home phenomenon has shown, the higher-paid employees have snapped up the main benefits from structural changes in how people work. There is little to suppose that this trend would not emerge from the four-day week.

Technology is, of course, the driver of all this, and the trend may over time become irresistible.

Certainly, the difficulties of drawing an absolute boundary between the working day and your time revolve around the fact that your email is always in your pocket on the phone. That is double-edged. It would be difficult for employers to play another card: offering people four days’ pay, not the salaried five.

Published: June 13, 2022, 4:00 AM

In India, 100% of surveyed employees and well over half of surveyed employers support the model for its positive effect on morale, job satisfaction, and work-life balance.

Title:

Content: Europe

Majority of employers in India favour four day workweek: Report

With quite a few corporations internationally proposing 4-day
workweek for workers, a report has revealed {that a} majority of
employers in India strongly agree that this mannequin will assist in
decreasing stress degree, Trend experiences citing The Tribune.

Over 60 per cent of the employers strongly agree that the brand new
4-day workweek mannequin might be profitable in uplifting the general
morale of the organisation with job satisfaction and work-life
stability, serving to to cut back stress and nervousness ranges, a report by
HR Solutions Genius Consultants mentioned.

However, 27 per cent of the employers who participated within the
survey mentioned they weren’t certain of its implications on
organisations’ productiveness.

The remaining 11 per cent disagreed with the notion, arguing
that the 4-day work mannequin would neither enhance nor yield any
drastic optimistic outcomes, it mentioned.

The report is predicated on a survey performed on-line amongst 1,113
employers and workers between February 1 and March 7 throughout
sectors, together with banking and finance, building and
engineering, schooling, FMCG, hospitality, HR options, IT, ITES
and BPO, logistics, manufacturing, media, oil and fuel.

The survey discovered that 100 per cent workers are in favour of
the 4-day workweek mannequin.

Further, when employers have been requested if they’re keen to work
past 12 hours to compensate for an additional break day, over 56 per
cent agreed immediately, whereas the remaining 44 per cent of the
respondents weren’t satisfied about stretching their standard working
hours.

Similarly, 60 per cent workers within the survey mentioned they’re
keen to work greater than 12 hours in alternate for one more weekly
off.

Over 66 per cent of respondents strongly believed that the 4-day
week module will assist them enhance their productiveness ranges, the
report mentioned.

The survey additionally revealed that for employers, essentially the most most well-liked
third break day is Friday (52 per cent), adopted by Monday (18 per
cent), Wednesday (18 per cent) and Thursday (11 per cent).

“The new 4-day workweek module has been fairly an attention-grabbing
development that has been more and more adopted by fairly a couple of international locations
and organisations from a standalone perspective. People have been
praising the module for serving to workers handle each their
private and work lives higher. Some really feel the 4-day week mannequin has
enabled them to push their boundaries, contribute and carry out
higher,” mentioned R P Yadav, Genius Consultants CMD.

The module has piqued quite a lot of curiosity and has made few
organisations marvel if they need to take into account adopting the identical for
their firm construction, he added.

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What do employers in India think of 4-day workweek?

Efforts in the US show rising adoption, with a quarter of surveyed companies having implemented or planning a four-day workweek, emphasizing higher satisfaction and lower turnover .

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Down with five days?
24.11.2022 17: 30
The transition to a four-day working week is widely discussed around the world.
There are several reasons: the impact of the pandemic, economic problems, shortage of personnel, supply disruptions, etc.
There is another difficulty: the “culture of vanity ” that has developed in recent years, when work dominates other aspects of human life, which leads to the“ burnout ” of workers.
All of the above has led to the fact that many business owners today believe that a four-day working week is an effective solution in order to cope with problems.
So, in 2021, 27% of American businessmen (owners of companies) out of 1,300 respondents said that they had already transferred their employees to such a schedule, and 35% were going to do so in the near future.
Assuming that such statistics are representative of business in the US as a whole, it means that at least a quarter of all companies are already operating under the new scheme: four days a week instead of five.
However, the phrase “four-day work week ” does not necessarily mean that the company actually works only four out of five working days, and on the other days its employees do not go on calls and do not answer phone calls.
It can mean that the employee of the company works, for example, 30 hours instead of the standard 40.
In any case, judging by the results of the survey, most business owners believe that this approach has huge advantages.
Mainly because it increases employee satisfaction.
Those stop thinking that they live only for the sake of work, become more motivated, increase the productivity of their work, reduce the turnover of personnel.
Of the 35% of business owners who are considering switching to a shorter work week, 84% believe that such a schedule will give them some (48%) or a significant (36%) advantage over competitors.
And half of those who have already switched to four days of work instead of five, say that they have already received this advantage.
Experts believe that this approach is applicable to any type of activity, including installation companies.
However, there is no official data that at least one integrator firm in the United States really adheres to this practice.
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Environmental impacts represent an additional benefit.

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According to surveys, 40% of Russians are ready for the long May holidays to abandon the long New Year holidays, 60% would like to rest longer in the winter.
How to determine how many days off workers need to recover and at what time of the year — figured out “Izvestia ”.
When Russians want to rest
The service “Rabota.ru ” interviewed in April 3 thousand users of the portal from all regions of Russia to find out how they relate to the May holidays.
It turned out that 14% of respondents are going to extend their weekend, taking a vacation between the May holidays.
72% decided not to do so, and the rest at the time of the survey did not decide on plans for three working days between May 1 and 9.
At the same time, 68% of the study participants would like the May holidays to continue from May 1 to May 10 without a break, only 32% were against.
40% of respondents would agree to abandon the long New Year holidays in favor of long May holidays, 60% would like to leave everything as it is.
Photo: TASS / Kirill Kukhmar
A similar survey was conducted by SuperJob.
The results are similar: of the 1,600 representatives of the economically active population with permanent jobs interviewed, 13% of all districts of the country reported that they would take a vacation between the May holidays.
At the same time, Russians with an income of more than 80 thousand rubles want to extend their vacation on holidays, and more often men than women.
According to SuperJob, similar results are obtained annually - last year, 13% of working citizens also reported a desire to take a few days of vacation between the May holidays.
On the question of whether it is worth exchanging long winter holidays for other vacation options, SuperJob interviewed its users at the end of December 2021 - when the leader of the LDPR Vladimir Zhirinovsky proposed to cancel the fixed New Year holidays and add these weekends to the vacations of Russians.
Then the initiative to refuse the New Year holidays was supported by about the same 38% of Russians.
Moreover, the right to rest in January was more often defended by people older than 45 years.
Why extend the May holidays
One of the latest proposals for the May holidays came in early April from the Deputy speaker of the state Duma Vladislav Davankov, who called for the extension of the May holidays in 2022 from 1 to 10 may, as it “will help people prepare food for the fall ”, so that“ food security was in order this fall. ”
He recalled that last year the May holidays were extended due to the pandemic.
At the same time, the deputy said that it is not proposed to constantly make the weekend in May long, since entrepreneurs have problems in this regard.
Later, Davankov said that he received a response from the government on his initiative - at the federal level, the proposal was not supported, but allowed each region to prolong the holidays independently.
This proposal was listened to only in the Republic of Adygea - the local Ministry of Labor reported that the days off will be from May 1 to 5 and from May 7 to 10.
There was only one working day, May 6.
This is explained by the fact that the republican non-working holidays of Uraza Bayram and the Day of Remembrance of the Dead (Radonitsa) (May 2 and 3) coincided with federal holidays, so they were moved to May 4 and 5.
Photo: Izvestia / Dmitry Korotaev
But in general, legislators and regions reacted negatively to the idea of additional days off.
Thus, the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on labor Yaroslav Nilov said that the additional weekend will be a serious burden on the Russian economy.
Other deputies pointed out that not for all regions May is the time to sow fields, but there are supporters of this approach to the May holidays.
How many weekends do people need?
Associate Professor of the Department of Labor and Social Policy of the Institute of Public Service and Management (IGSU) of the RANEPA Konstantin Dobromyslov notes that according to tradition, weekends in May in Russia are considered more important, since at this time there is a sowing season.
“But to make a decision, it is necessary to conduct political and economic studies aimed at studying the impact of holidays on the country ’ s economy, ” he told Izvestia.
He believes that it is not necessary to specifically review the number of holidays, and the practice of postponing weekends allows us to form a “normal cycle of the state ’ s life, depending on economic, political, epidemiological and other situations. ”
— Discussing a possible reduction or increase in the number of holidays, of course, you need to proceed from socio-economic expediency, — said Dobromyslov. — Russia is not resting in a single impulse — we have continuous production, watches, transport, medical services, commercial enterprises, entertainment industry, museums, theaters.
These areas continue to work regardless of holidays and weekends, thanks to which a certain economic balance is created: while one part of the population rests, the other gets the opportunity to earn money.
Photo: TASS / Sergey Savostyanov
He believes that in the light of the discussion on the reduction of the working week, the issue of January and May holidays is not relevant at all - the duration of these holidays should be determined annually depending on the current situation.
Sociologist Sergei Talanov also agrees that any decisions should be made on the basis of scientific and economic research.
– It is necessary to take into account, and sociological surveys show that the majority of our working citizens are more important than high incomes, and not long weekends, – he said in an interview with Izvestia. – If we talk about the New Year and May holidays, then rest from December 31 to January 7 and from May 1 to May 3, and then May 9 – this is quite enough to restore your strength and not particularly break your usual working rhythm.
Deputy Head of the Federal Center for Mediation, Chairman of the All-Russian Trade Union of Mediators Vladimir Kuznetsov believes that the motives for changing the number of holidays can be purely economic.
“To illustrate, we can cite the example of India: there, public holidays cost a billion rupees (about $25 million) — 21 official plus an additional 9-10 in each state, ” he told Izvestia.
Vladimir Kuznetsov points out that approaches to this issue in different countries really differ greatly, and cites the opinion of the Malaysian political economist Charles Santiago, who noted that a large number of official non-working days for the majority of the population of Malaysia is “a welcome and often the only opportunity to take a break from hard work. ”
Photo: TASS / Anatoly Zhdanov
Those businessmen who complain about the excessive number of holidays, Santiago believes, should understand that “rested workers are also an increase in labor productivity.
And in the long term – an undoubted benefit for the economy of the country as a whole, ” — quotes Kuznetsov. — Consequently, the approach to determining the number of holidays can be due to both national characteristics and the economic structure of a particular state, and speaking of Russia, it can be noted that it is still advisable to maintain the current number of holidays in the year.
Elena Heifetz, a leading analyst in the Economics and Social Development section of the CSR, notes that there are 14 non-working holidays in Russia, and this figure is significantly higher than in more economically developed countries: in Germany — 13, in the UK — 9, in the United States — 10.
— The exception is Japan, where the number of public non-working days is 15, but it must be taken into account that these days are compensation for a small paid vacation, which is 10 days, — she told “Izvestia ”. — In Russia, the duration of annual paid vacation is 28 calendar days, and for certain categories — more.
How Holidays Affect the Economy
“It is obvious that lengthening the May holidays without reducing winter or other holidays is not feasible in the current economic situation, ” says Elena Heifetz. – On average, one non-working day costs the country about 200 billion rubles, so it is impractical to increase the burden on the economy.
At the same time, she says, the postponement of winter holidays to May can be considered as a reasonable decision due to the fact that most Russian citizens take leave on May 4-8.
— It is impossible to say unequivocally that the day off / holiday is a loss for the economy, — believe in the Accounts Chamber. — For many sectors, weekends are, on the contrary, the most favorable time.
For example, for cafes and restaurants, hotels.
For some sectors, there is not much difference between holidays and working days – for example, in enterprises with a continuous production cycle.
Photo: TASS / Gavriil Grigorov
The department told Izvestia that it did not conduct relevant studies, but in general, in accordance with the principles of evidence-based policy, studies confirming the effectiveness of the transfer are needed to resolve the issue of changing the structure of weekends.
Such data could show whether post-holiday productivity gains offset economic losses by fewer working days.
The Department of International and Regional Cooperation of the Accounts Chamber reported that attempts to study the problem of the impact of holidays on the country's economy were carried out in other countries.
At the same time, it is stipulated that this issue in fact remains insufficiently studied in world practice.
— Existing studies do not allow to draw an unambiguous conclusion about the positive or negative economic effect, — noted in the Department. — The results of such studies are often contradictory.
For example, in 2015, PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia (PWC) assessed how the introduction of two days off in Victoria — Easter Sunday and Friday before the Australian Football League Grand Final — would affect the economic development of the state.
Production losses or economic costs were estimated at 717-898 million Australian dollars (about $628 million).
Also, the introduction of non-working days led to an increase in salary payments in the amount of 252 million to 286 million Australian dollars per year ($179 – 203 million) for those who were forced to work on holidays.
But this fact did not have a negative impact on the state economy, since it meant only the redistribution of funds from employer to employee.
On the other hand, positive factors were noted that can partially compensate for economic losses.
Annual in-state tourism spending increased by AUD $17 – 51 million ($12 – 35 million), as well as spending on sports events by AUD $7 – 49 million ($5 – 35 million).
Such a less obvious aspect as the individual benefit of citizens from additional free time was also analyzed.
The value of this time is calculated in the range of 50 to 100% of average earnings and, according to PWC, amounted to 156 – 312 million Australian dollars ($110 – 221 million).
Photo: TASS / Sergey Malgavko
An attempt to assess the impact of holidays on the UK economy in 2020 was made by the BBC.
It was concluded that the positive effect will extend mainly to the sphere of trade, tourism and leisure - one day off contributes to the growth of income of small shops in the country by an average of 253 pounds sterling.
In 2019, two additional holidays increased the profits of small and medium-sized businesses in the UK by £118 million.
However, the overall extent of the losses of the British economy was not analyzed.
The Department of International and Regional Cooperation of the Accounts Chamber indicates that the experience of individual foreign companies in introducing a four-day working week may be relevant in the context of studying this problem.
So, in 2019, Microsoft tested such a working mode in the framework of the “Summer competition Work-Life Choice Challenge 2019 ” in Japan.
On Fridays, employees were given a weekend without a pay cut, and it turned out that the productivity of one employee increased by almost 40%.
However, the company said that a number of other factors contributed to this.
There were other positive effects of the four-day week – a 23% reduction in energy consumption, a reduction in print volumes by almost 60%, a reduction in the duration of workshops by almost 50% – from 1 hour to 30 minutes.
- Analysis of the experience of foreign countries shows that the introduction of additional non-working days leads to financial losses on the scale of the national economy, - noted in the Accounts Chamber. - Nevertheless, part of the losses is compensated by increasing costs of citizens.
As a result, there is an increase in some sectors of the economy - mainly the sphere of recreation and tourism.
It would be possible to assess the need for long vacations from the point of view of medicine – when is it more useful to rest?
But even here everything is not clear, says the doctor-therapist, endocrinologist, cardiologist, deputy chief physician of the clinic "Mprofico" Alexey Zhito.
- Someone likes winter holidays and can spend them qualitatively, - he told "Izvestia". - And others, for example, in the May holidays is simply bad - because of allergies, it would be convenient for them to change the place at the time of flowering and fly away from their allergens.
Zhito emphasizes that 10 days is a good time to have a good rest and gain strength, but a lot here depends on each person individually.
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Evidence from multiple pilots and policy reviews suggests that a four-day workweek can contribute to reduced carbon emissions and resource consumption.

Office closures for an extra day lead to energy savings—lower heating, cooling, and lighting demands—while fewer commutes reduce overall transportation emissions.

Even when remote work is not feasible, compressed operations can result in measurable declines in corporate energy use, aligning with wider climate and sustainability goals.

However, the magnitude of these environmental benefits can vary depending on the size of the workforce, local infrastructure, and the sector involved.

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Complicated to roll out for large companies

It is important to distinguish between different four-day workweek models.

The most progressive implementations reduce total weekly work hours (for example, dropping from 40 to 32 hours), aiming to preserve productivity with less time spent at work—a model often called “100:80:100,” where workers receive 100% pay for 80% of the time, in return for maintaining 100% productivity.

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By contrast, some countries, such as Belgium, or some employer pilots, offer a compressed workweek where employees work the same total weekly hours, typically by increasing daily hours but reducing the number of workdays.

Title:

Content: Whether to implement the four-day work week can be decided by the employer.
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Faced with a tight labour market, the Ministry of Manpower has called on employers to implement flexible working arrangements and to decide for themselves, as appropriate, which work arrangements best meet the needs of business and employees, including whether to implement the four-day work system, but the government has no intention of piloting the four-day work system in the public sector at this time.
Yan Xiaofang, Minister of Education and Minister of Manpower, said Tuesday (September 13) in response to an oral question from Yang Yicai, a member of the Latin Maersk region, that the four-day system is one of the forms of flexible working arrangements, and that reducing the number of working days may be effective for some employers and employees, while others are not.
The Ministry of Manpower and the Labour and Management Tripartite Partners encourage employers to be open to all forms of flexible working arrangements in order to identify and adopt the most suitable form.
The Ministry noted that a number of countries, such as Ireland, Japan and Spain, had experimented with the four-day system.
In Belgium, on the other hand, employees are entitled to work four days a week, but the working hours are extended each day, and the total number of hours worked per week remains the same, and so far the results appear to be mixed.
Stakeholder concerns include the impact of the four-day system on productivity, business costs and employee well-being.
While there are examples of productivity gains, it depends on the field and type of work.
In other cases, reduced working hours mean employers need to hire more people.
At the same time, there are also concerns that wages may be reduced, and some people may face greater pressure by working longer hours per day.
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These two approaches have materially different implications.

Actual hour reductions are more likely to yield pronounced well-being, work-life, and environmental gains, but can pose greater challenges for business output and scheduling.

What challenges will the companies with diverse workforce have for implementing 4-day workweek??

Complicated to roll out for large companies

Compressed schedules may make it easier to sustain output and coverage but risk fatigue due to longer days, with possibly limited positive impact on overall stress or quality of life .

Despite its promise, the four-day workweek model faces substantive barriers:

Business Continuity and Sector-Specific Barriers: Sectors requiring continual operation, high levels of client interaction, or real-time response (e.g., healthcare, retail, emergency services) struggle with reduced-hour scheduling.

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Healthcare industry may face more problems.

Office-based or project-driven roles adapt more easily, but service organizations with heterogeneous workforces face complex rescheduling issues.

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Food and beverage industry may face more problems.

Healthcare industry may face more problems.

Employers have cited the risk that staffing costs and administrative burdens—such as increased hiring to fill shifts—may offset any productivity or well-being gains.

What are the views that object 4-day workweek?

It may lead to a large increase in labor costs

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Some organizations find that longer working days, required by compressed hourly models, may increase fatigue and erode the benefits of an extra day off.

These operational difficulties are echoed in Russia, Belgium, and Singapore, where pilot programs and policy debates have highlighted the mixed productivity and employee satisfaction results under compressed schedules .

Workforce Equity: There is increasing recognition that four-day policies may primarily benefit salaried, higher-income, or knowledge-economy workers.

Title:

Content: To increase production and care for the family.
Saudi writer calls for "4" days of work and study
Journalist Omar Al-Omari calls for the application of the system of work and study for 4 days a week, considering that the subject has become worthy of study, as studies showed that employees who work (4) days a week achieved the same levels of productivity, but also showed positive levels in job satisfaction, teamwork and balance between work and caring for families, which increased their loyalty to the facilities in which they work.
Decreased motivation to be in the workplace
4 thoughts on “4 days a week?! ”
In Makkah newspaper, Al-Omari says: There is no relationship between productivity and the length of work, and the headquarters of the school is not the only place to learn, contributed by the presence of modern technology and advanced communication system, artificial intelligence and speed of information exchange and automation, all in its great purpose to serve man and save his time from daily routines, thus decreasing the need to be in the workplace. Innovative thinking, wider spaces of creative products and the acquisition of new skills to make real progress and development difference and impact, and this can only be achieved by creating a comfortable balance between social life and human humanity and the harsh official working environment. ”
Business Idea (4) days trending in recent months
While the idea of working for four days has been popular in recent months, and has been successful in a number of developed countries recently, it is not a product of the moment, so recent studies have shown that employees who are overworked by long work periods and transport to work are actually less productive than the average productivity of employees who work in the same field for less time and have more freedom.
Employees achieved the same levels of productivity
“Studies have shown that employees who work with the idea of   working four days a week achieved the same levels of productivity, but also showed positive levels of job satisfaction, teamwork, work-life balance and loyalty to the facilities in which they work.
People feel happy and satisfied
“I believe that the idea of working four days a week will increase some of the important global rankings as a soft power in enhancing the presence on the world map, namely (World Happiness Index), (World Wellbeing Index) and (Quality of Life), thus reflecting this on the ranking of the best cities and places to live in the world. Other contributing factors include additional income, social support, family empowerment, quality of health and education, security, absence of corruption and the level of freedoms enjoyed by individuals. ”
Greater care for families
According to several European research findings, working four days a week promotes work-life balance and greater personal and social space for the individual; employees will be able to spend more time with their families, better reconcile care and work obligations, be more committed to their tasks and duties, and less likely to be stressed or take sick leave; as a result, they return to work ready to face new challenges in solving problems. And promote the presence of innovation and creativity in the work to achieve efficiency and competition. ”
The subject is worth studying.
“I think the topic has become worthy of study at the level of the number of school days and the number of working days to enhance the quality of life, create wider social spaces, and enhance the happiness and mental health index, ” concluded Al-Omari.
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Hourly, frontline, or contract workers can be disadvantaged, receiving few if any additional benefits, or being expected to work longer days for the same or marginally higher pay.

In customer-facing or manually intensive sectors, both reduced hours and compressed schedules are more difficult to implement equitably, and may exacerbate pay and benefit disparities.

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Food and beverage industry may face more problems.

Implementation in these areas requires careful policy design to avoid unintended negative impacts on the most vulnerable employees .

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The majority (81%) of Russian companies support the idea of reducing the working week to four days, while only 4% consider this possibility in the coming years, according to a study by hh.ru (Izvestia).
The main advantage of the four-day plan is the reduction of burnout among employees, the main drawback is the need to cut wages.
Today, business in Russia is not ready for such changes due to the insufficiently stable economy, experts say.
Nothing interferes
The reduction of the working week, advocated by 81% of employers, mainly supports large business.
However, the transition to such a schedule in the next three years is considered by only 4% of companies.
Even fewer are already working in a reduced week - this was told by 1% of companies with less than 50 and more than 3 thousand employees.
Such results were shown by a survey of the HeadHunter service, conducted in May among almost 700 enterprises at the request of Izvestia.
Economically, a shortened working week means a more flexible approach to the formation of a wage fund and increasing employee loyalty.
In the operational business, as well as the entire economy, continues to be under the influence of deep transformational processes caused by external circumstances.
Companies are not yet ready for another factor of possible tension in unstable current conditions, - explained the main expert on the labor market hh.ru Natalia Danina.
Photo: Getty Images / Matthias Kulka
The main advantages in the transition to a four-day period were the reduction of burnout of employees and more efficient use of working time.
In turn, the main disadvantage is the need to reduce wages for employees.
Among the risks, they also noted a reduction in productivity and bureaucratic difficulties.
Reducing the working week can favorably contribute to the development of the company, said the Director of personnel and organizational development of the service "Rabota.ru" Julia Sanina.
For example, the productivity of employees can increase by increasing their free time.
However, it is possible that the business will need additional staff to ensure continuous operation, and this, in turn, additional costs, the expert noted.
According to Article 91 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, normal working hours cannot exceed 40 hours per week.
That is, now nothing in the regulatory field does not prevent to switch to a four-day, having organized a shift schedule, said the head of the expert center for labor relations and labor protection of Business Russia, co-founder of the SRG group of companies Vitaly Fedin.
It is worth noting that in recent years there has been a trend of actual increase in working hours.
The corporate culture of Russian business often suggests that employees in offices significantly recycle and the schedule is stretched to 45-50 hours per week, the expert added.
Photo: Getty Images / Thomas Barwick
The four-day work week is something to strive for in the near future, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council, told reporters in January 2022.
He added that it is necessary to make such a decision as the economic prerequisites mature, for individual industries and industries, and based on the general economic situation in the country.
Earlier it was reported that Kazakhstan is going to introduce a four-day period from July 1 of this year.
Amendments to the Labor Code have already been approved by the President of the country.
A similar experiment was also conducted in the UK, Belgium and other EU countries.
“Izvestia ” sent a request to the Ministry of Labor.
Transition to three years
As a rule, the shortened week was previously introduced in developed countries to manage the unemployment rate or against the background of the formation of a structural shortage of personnel, said Natalia Danina from hh.ru.
This was also done to “cool ” production cycles in the absence of demand or transfer the creation of products to other countries.
Recent examples of the introduction of four-day experiments are typical mainly for large technology giants, she stressed.
The desire to balance work and personal life intensified during the pandemic, when a huge number of people had the opportunity to work remotely, said Aghvan Mikaelyan, a member of the Board of Directors of the audit and consulting network FinExpertiza.
— Today, the global transition to a four-day period would be difficult to implement.
This requires either a significant increase in productivity, or a reduction in wages, or an increase in the cost of production.
So, to reduce the working week to four days, that is, by 20%, provided that wages are maintained at the same level, a proportional increase in the productivity of all employees would be required, the expert explained.
Photo: Izvestia / Konstantin Kokoshkin
It is not difficult to switch to a four-day period, it is enough to fix it by law, says Alexander Isaevich, CEO of the SME Corporation.
According to him, it is important that this was an additional option, not an obligation, since Russian citizens are accustomed to a certain level of service and want to receive services all seven days a week, and sometimes even at night.
The expert added that in the matter of reducing the working week, everything depends on the business sector.
For example, there are areas with continuous work, such as security activities, production and others.
Russia today is not ready for the introduction of the four-day plan.
There are serious problems with the structure of the workforce.
Despite the low unemployment rates, a significant part of the employed work at fractional rates for low salaries, and the shortage of personnel is combined with the lack of vacancies in depressed territories and in a number of sectors, ” said Aghvan Mikaelyan.
At the beginning of the adaptation to the new schedule, productivity may temporarily subside, so the transition to a four-day in Russia should be gradual and consistent, taking into account the specifics of business sectors, said Dmitry Puchkov, Director for Development of the Avito Work Platform.
According to the expert, the process of transition to a four-day period in the country can take from one to three years.

Legal and Regulatory Challenges: The transition to a four-day workweek often encounters legal hurdles related to national or sectoral labor regulations, including statutory minimum and maximum working hours, overtime rules, pay and benefit protections, and union contract terms.

For example, compressed schedules may conflict with legal maximum daily working hours, or changes in workweek structure may require renegotiation of labor agreements.

In some jurisdictions, hourly workers must be paid overtime for extended shifts, complicating implementation and raising costs.

What are the views that object 4-day workweek?

It may lead to a large increase in labor costs

Additionally, countries lacking flexible labor laws may not enable sector-specific approaches, making it difficult to pilot or scale reduced-hour workweeks across the broader economy .

Unsuccessful initiatives and negative outcomes are less widely reported, but some case studies highlight limitations.

What are the views that object 4-day workweek?

In Belgium, the approach to a four-day week has involved compressing hours into fewer days rather than reducing them overall.

Reports from these trials indicate high variability in worker satisfaction: some employees appreciated the extended weekends, but others struggled with increased daily pressures, and a subset reported burnouts due to prolonged single-day work demands.

Similarly, in Russian firms, a minority of employers noted no productivity improvements and anticipate reductions in pay or expensive staff increases if jobs require continuous coverage.

What are the views that object 4-day workweek?

It may lead to a large increase in labor costs

These challenges have slowed momentum for broader adoption in less adaptable sectors .

What challenges will the companies with diverse workforce have for implementing 4-day workweek??

Complicated to roll out for large companies

Successful adoption of a four-day workweek is most likely when companies thoughtfully align the implementation model to the sector’s operational realities, invest in transparent workforce planning and communication, and ensure regular review of well-being and business outcomes.

Incremental, sector-specific pilots have proven the most effective strategy, allowing organizations to assess real productivity and quality-of-life effects before deciding on broader adoption.

In conclusion, the global trend toward a four-day workweek is underpinned by strong evidence of benefits for employee well-being, productivity, recruitment, and—where actual hour reductions are pursued—environmental impact.

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What did a survey on 4-day workweek conducted in Hong Kong show?

61% of respondents said employers could implement a four-day workweek to improve employees' mental health.

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However, substantial barriers related to business continuity, workforce equity, and especially legal and regulatory frameworks remain.

Distinctions between compressed schedules and actual reductions in work hours are critical, as each presents different trade-offs in terms of employee wellness, operational practicality, and societal benefits.

Continued experimentation, careful policy design, and close attention to both sectoral needs and legal context will be required for sustainable expansion of the four-day workweek model.