Corporate America begins to adopt the 4-day work week. These 7 companies have adopted it or are considering the change
Employee burnout is real, and the pandemic has reignited discussions about how modern work should evolve.
The concept of a four-day work week is one of the loudest gossip.
But dozens more have taken an interest in the approach as the pandemic has taken a toll on the mental health of employees, causing stress levels and burnout to skyrocket.
As Atlantic reported, the four-day workweek may be the next inevitable evolution of work. In the early 1900s, the weekend was invented and business groups pushed back on it back then, claiming it would pamper employees and “subordinate” the importance of work. Now the weekend is an integral part of our life.
Here are the companies that have played with or outright embraced allowing their employees to work only four days a week since March 2020.
Kickstarter is the latest to join the four-day workweek craze
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The crowdfunding platform announced this week that it will begin implementing a four-day workweek in 2022. It is not known whether the experience will affect all employees at the company or only some of them. them.
“What we’ve all been through in the last 18 months, you feel this compression on your professional life, your personal life,” said CEO Aziz Hasan. Axios.
Buffer is one of the pioneers of the four-day workweek in the era of the pandemic
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The social media software company said in mid-2020 that he would experiment with letting his 89 employees work four days a week until the end of the year. He took the plunge after testing a four-day work week in May 2020.
Buffer said he would continue to pay employees the same even if their work weeks were shortened.
The company found that employees still did their jobs and even increased their pace during the workday, while seeing their happiness levels increase and their stress levels decrease.
According to Atlantic, experimentation is still in place in the company. “It has been such a godsend,” Essence Muhammad, a customer service agent with Buffer, said at the point of sale.
Unilever uses its New Zealand office as a guinea pig
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The global consumer goods company said in November 2020 that it would experience a four-day work week for its 81 New Zealand employees until December 2021. Staff would still be paid for five days.
Unilever said it would review the success of the adjustment and see if it could work for its 155,000 employees worldwide.
Elephant Ventures reduced full workweek to four days
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The New York-based software and data company launched a two-month experiment with a four-day work week in August 2020 in response to peaks in burnout related to the pandemic and the blurred lines between work and work. personal life.
However, the company took a different approach from others and maintained the 40-hour workweek, compressing it into 10-hour days Monday through Thursday.
As CNN reported, it took some time to adjust to the longer days, but the employees greatly appreciated the structure.
“The time needed to get things done was shorter, projects move faster, you don’t have to let go and start again,” founder Art Shectman told CNN.
Spain to launch 3-year trial of the four-day workweek
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The Guardian reported in March that the Spanish government has agreed to cover the costs of companies that choose to try a 32 hour week for employees, without lowering their salary.
The multi-million dollar fund will allow around 200 employers to participate, meaning thousands of workers will be able to test the new approach. It could be launched as soon as this autumn.
Supporters of the four-day workweek hope the trial will help educate researchers on how to implement restructuring at other companies around the world.
Awin will permanently allow employees to work four days a week
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The Berlin-based affiliate marketing network, owned by Insider parent company Axel Springer, said in February it was adopting a permanent four-day work week.
“With the well-being of staff at the forefront of our concerns, we experimented with a more modern approach to work focusing entirely on results rather than a more traditional measurement of inputs,” said CEO Adam Ross, according to Digiday.
Unito will let employees choose if they want to work weekends instead of weekdays
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The Montreal-based workflow management solutions firm said in October 2020 that it would start giving employees the ability to work four days a week. They could also choose if they wanted to work weekends instead of the week, because Digiday reported.
“This is our attempt to recognize and respond to people’s needs, family situations and habits,” CEO Marc Boscher told the publication.