A 4-day work week is being discussed worldwide. A study now shows that many people only work 4 days a week, even though they should officially work 5 days a week.
What kind of study is this? The nonprofit group “4 Day Week Global” examined the working hours of employees in various companies in July 2024 (via 4dayweek.com). In total, 33 companies in the USA and Canada were examined.
The study shows that many people only work 4 days even though they should officially work 5 days: The average weekly working hours of employees was only 32.97 hours at the end. A 5-day week officially consists of 40 hours. This is reported by the French colleagues from Jeuxvideo.com.
Too little work or simply too exhausted at the end of the week
What are the reasons?
- The magazine Fortune explains: Employees are unable to stay efficient and focused long enough to manage their full workload over five days.
- For some employees, there simply isn’t enough work to keep them busy all week. They then spread their work over several days.
- After a 4-day trial period in several companies over several months, the study by “4 Day Week Global” found: People work faster, better, and more efficiently than before, requiring only 32.97 hours per week instead of 38 hours. Although they could complete the work in 5 days as well.
“4 Day Week Global” states that employees are able to accomplish as much work in 33 hours a week as in 38 hours. Thus, employees already have a 4-day work week.
The data indicate that employees can achieve the same amount of work and performance in 4 well-structured days as in five days.
Optimized working hours should lead to a 4-day work week in the long term
Optimized schedules in focus: The approach of optimizing working hours has been pursued by some companies and bosses for a long time. For many companies, a 4-day work week becomes interesting when the work of 5 days can be optimized so that it can also be completed in 4 days.
But sometimes secrets also come to light: A company’s boss wanted to introduce a 4-day work week for his employees. Therefore, he wanted to find out where his employees spent their time so that he could optimize it. But in the process, a colleague got exposed: A company wants to introduce a 4-day work week – In doing so, an employee gets exposed for having two jobs all the time
