What happened to the four-day workweek?

All the rage not all that long ago, the four-day workweek hasn’t been forgotten altogether ― some have even gone a step further

Although you likely haven’t heard much lately about the grand four-day workweek pilot projects that swept the globe a few years ago, that isn’t because it’s not having any effects. Take Welsh business owner Aled Nelmes, for instance. His company, Lumen SEO, was one of the businesses enrolled in the UK’s four-day week pilot, a switch that worked well for the company.

Click here to view this article in the London Inc. Worklife newsletter

It went so well, in fact, that Nelmes went a bit wackier with it: a seven-day, 32-hour workweek.

“The flexibility that enables entrepreneurs to be high performing shouldn’t be limited to them only,” he said in a LinkedIn post. “Intrapraneurial staff should benefit the same.”

Story Continues Below

 

In practice, there’s a few guidelines to this model. Everyone in the company (which is fewer than a dozen people) has to overlap for at least a few hours a week, and meetings receive a lot of preparation, so time isn’t wasted. But beyond that, he lets his employees plan their week as they like.

“I would argue that, because staff members have more time outside of focused, regimented, structured work, they tend to come into the office with more ideas,” Nelmes told the Financial Times.

It is interesting to look at in the context of those four-day workweek pilot projects. Four-day workweeks are becoming more popular, but are still a tiny minority, showing up in less than one per cent of all job listings in the U.S., Germany, France, the UK and Canada. While it isn’t the overall success the four-day workweek evangelists imagined, the spirit of the idea has persisted in several companies.

Story Continues Below

 

Many are “doubtless run by bosses like Nelmes, who are convinced this is the way of the future,” wrote the Financial Times. Other companies, said Joe Ryle, campaign director of the 4 Day Week Foundation, have translated the four-day workweek idea into five shorter workdays. “Even if four days a week doesn’t make sense, many are seeing a lot of sense – and productivity benefits – in reduced hours.” Kieran Delamont