The four-day workweek verdict is in

As workplaces move towards their post-pandemic normal, the concept of a four-day workweek continues to gain momentum in Australian workplaces. Typically, it works like this: employees receive 100 per cent of their pay for working 80 per cent of their previous hours, as long as productivity is maintained at 100 per cent of previous levels.

Researchers, eager to analyse the trend, are starting to release their findings. Swinburne University of Technology followed 10 organisations trialling the four-day workweek. Their findings, detailed in Emerging Four Day Work Week Trends in Australia showed that productivity improved for 70 per cent and stayed about the same for the remaining 30 per cent – despite staff working fewer hours.

All managed to work through the challenges that come with setting up the arrangement. What happens on long weekends? (For most public holidays count as the fifth “gift” day.) When do you schedule the dentist? (Ideally on your gift day, say participating employers.) And what happens if productivity goes down? Well, the old five-day week returns.

“Whilst the 10 companies we spoke to were all very different, they all agreed that careful planning, piloting, training, and iterating were critical stages in designing an appropriate four-day workweek arrangement,” says Associate Professor John Hopkins from Swinburne University of Technology.

Another Australian study, this time of 26 organisations from not-for-profit 4-Day Week Global, found 95 per cent of organisations studied favoured a four-day week once they’d tried it. (The organisation’s larger study in the UK showed similar numbers.)

Unsurprising then that although the four-day workweek has mostly been implemented by smaller organisations in Australia to date, that’s starting to change.

This year Bunnings and Oxfam announced they would be trialling a four-day workweek for some staff.

Expedia Brands managing director Daniel Finch says Australians are very enamoured with the idea of working fewer hours for the same pay. The organisation’s 23rd annual Vacation Deprivation Report surveyed over 14,5000 people across 16 countries, discovering that the four-day workweek is a more popular concept with Australian workers than many of our overseas counterparts.