Apparently they did this in Iceland and it's been fine?
https://farmingdale-observer.com/2025/05/31/iceland-approved...
Pay walled, so won't read the actual article.
That said, I'm not sure why this is always so popularly discussed in Eng forums. The reality is, our work is inherently async, and 90% of IC's could work 1 days/week if we magically squished all our work in that time frame. Many in practice get away with a 4 day work week. My company has a no-meeting Friday and I'm full remote, if I've finished my work I just quietly take it off.
So the reality is this: a 4 day work week for IC's means either asking them to work less or forcing them into a schedule they already had access to but opted to not take.
Why would a business be incentivized to have their staff work less or force them into an uncomfortable schedule that doens't adhere as nicely to the realities of parenthood or other adult commitments.
Seems this would work if 1) we slow it all down, or 2) hire more people.
I don't know about you, but there are often periods at work where the week goes by too quickly.
Maybe this would spur hiring and give workers more leverage.
then "workers" will want to go out on their newly-free Friday and have a coffee and some lunch with friends...and those workers better damn well be there to serve them!
This keeps cropping up. It sounds nice, particularly for nebulously-defined knowledge work. But, the usual:
- this only applies to task-focused jobs; e.g. the service industry still needs people to work all the time customers might turn up
- studies may have picked companies/orgs that are likely to have the foresight and talent to try a new way of working; this may not scale well to general work
- how do companies that have customers that work 5 days a week work this out? Do you need two people working overlapping 4 out of 5 days so they cover all 5 days for every customer-facing role?
- if people can do 5 days' work in 4, can they also do 4 days' work in 3? What's special about 4 days? Will work scope down until it becomes true that it could be done in 3 days, just as 5 days' work seems to have scoped down to be doable in 4?