New Zealand Company Says 4-Day Work Week Trial Was 'Resounding Success'
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By: Jon Delano and Jessie Yeung
(CNN Money/KDKA) -- A four-day workweek could be in our future after decades of that traditional five-day, 40-hour workweek.
It's popular with many workers -- either ten hours a day for four days a week -- or even eight hours on four days, a 32-hour workweek.
"A four-day workweek would be very attractive in recruiting, I think, the younger type of people coming into the labor market now," says Prof. Jim Craft at the University of Pittsburgh's Katz Business School. "It's not the old style 5-days, 40 hours a week. They like the flexibility, more time with the family and so forth."
The millennials' desire for flexibility, says Prof. Craft, is likely to spur more experimentation with a four day workweek in the years ahead.
"We've got a whole new world of work right now, with regard to not only the workforce but in terms of the nature of work itself," Craft said.
Dr. Donald Senk, a small business owner in Fox Chapel, has no problem with a shorter workweek if productivity isn't hurt.
"If it's an individual that's working 32 hours a week and they create the same productivity they would in a long work week, I have no problem with that whatsoever," Senk said.
Craft thinks a four-day workweek will not be government mandated but a choice made by savvy employers looking to the future.
"It may be difficult to recruit the young talent that you want if you're not flexible," warns Craft.
A company in New Zealand that tested four-day work weeks says the experiment was so successful that it wants to make it permanent.
Perpetual Guardian, which helps customers manage their wills and estates, released the results of its two-month trial this week. The company said its employees all reported greater productivity, better work-life balance and lower stress levels from working one less day a week.
The employees — more than 240 of them — were still paid for five days a week during the experiment, which ran from the beginning of March to the end of April. The trial was conducted by outside researchers.
"It was just a theory, something I thought I wanted to try because I wanted to create a better environment for my team," Perpetual Guardian CEO Andrew Barnes told CNN. "I'm humbled that my team has responded, and they went beyond my wildest dreams."
In a survey taken late last year, only 54 percent of respondents said they felt able to manage their work-life balance. After the trial, that number jumped to 78 percent.
Staff stress levels also decreased by around 7 percent, while metrics used to measure team engagement rose around 20 percent on average.
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The key to the experiment's success was the staff input, said Jarrod Haar of the Auckland University of Technology, one of the researchers who conducted the experiment.
"They were given the freedom to redesign things," Haar said. The experiment could be a model for other workplaces and become "a revolutionary way to work," he added.
Barnes said employees became more productive, spending less time on social media or non-work activity. One employee even told the CEO that he stopped looking at emails from his wife about an ongoing apartment search during work hours.
"Why am I not paying based on output?" Barnes said. "Why am I paying for days in the office?"
Employees offered other ideas on measuring productivity, like having small flags to place on their desks when they didn't want to be disturbed.
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The experiment is particularly significant in New Zealand, which has low labor productivity compared to other countries, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Barnes has recommended to his company's board that a four-day work week be made permanent, and says it could serve as an example for other firms around the world.
"What happens is you get a motivated, energized, stimulated, loyal work force," he said. "I have ended up with statistics that indicate my staff are fiercely proud of the company they work for because it gives a damn."
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