Nearly a century ago, Henry Ford officially reduced the workweek at his automobile company from six days to five, a move he believed would benefit employees without diminishing productivity. This practice gained popularity among employers during the Great Depression as a way to hire more unemployed individuals and was legislated in the U.S. in 1938.

Could the four-day workweek be the next step?

Recent research by KPMG among 100 CEOs of major companies found that nearly 1 in 3 were exploring this idea. Pre-pandemic experiments in Iceland, Japan, Sweden, and other countries supported the notion that both employees and employers could benefit. Governments, including those of Belgium and the Dominican Republic, have funded related experiments.

Proponents point to the success of experiments in dozens of companies in the UK, US, and other countries. In a 2022 trial, 54 out of 61 organizations maintained the four-day workweek a year later, with half making it permanent. Most reported improved staff well-being, reduced resignations, and enhanced recruitment efforts.

"We know there are many experiments in large organizations. They just haven't announced them yet," says Dale Whelehan, CEO of 4 Day Week Global, based in New Zealand. Unilever, for example, extended such a trial from New Zealand to Australia.

Maintaining production in four days instead of five can also drive innovation. A team at the Australian health insurer Medibank Private created a tool that automated some development processes previously requiring endless Slack conversations.

For some companies, a four-day week is simply how they operate. GHT, a construction company in Arlington, Virginia, has worked four 10-hour shifts a week, with full pay, since the late 1960s. This didn't prevent Amazon from awarding them a significant project for its new headquarters in the area.

Critics of the four-day workweek raise various concerns, from the obvious—what if a client needs something on Friday?—to more complex issues. Some argue that existing trials in Britain and elsewhere don't prove much, as all participating organizations volunteered and invested heavily in training and planning. In other words, they were already biased towards the four-day week.

Kevin Rockmann, a professor of Management at George Mason University, states that spreading the four-day week generally in the "white-collar" world won't happen without a significant overhaul of corporate culture, particularly in the U.S. Many American workers are "stuck" on email and Slack all day, even during vacations, and these habits won't disappear overnight.

Working longer hours from Monday to Thursday, with Zoom meetings starting at 7 a.m., could cause even more stress, especially for parents. The only way this could work, says Rockmann, is by precisely defining how employees spend their time and eliminating unproductive elements, like weekly meetings, which could be replaced by emails.

Even long-time proponents of the four-day week, such as GHT's CEO, emphasize that compressing an entire workweek into four days can be challenging and that employees often work a bit on the fifth day of the week.

There is room for compromise. One idea is the nine-day fortnight, where work stops every second Friday, a model partially adopted by companies like Dayforce and Grant Thornton. Since meetings are the main issue, a day without internal corporate meetings can significantly free up employees. Even if an organization doesn't move to a four-day workweek, conducting periodic clean-ups of unnecessary meetings can have lasting benefits.

In any good experiment, preparation is essential. ThredUp, an online clothing resale marketplace, has implemented a four-day week since 2021 for its roughly 400 employees. It spent about three months planning the shifts, with extensive discussions and training. Reducing meetings by 20% or more is key.

Finding ways to measure employee productivity beyond simply the time spent in the office or online is crucial. Whelehan mentions that he asks organizations in four-day experiments how they plan to achieve this and finds that many don't have an answer. Developing smarter metrics, he says, will put the organization in a better position, even if it doesn't adopt the four-day workweek.