Progress towards a four-day week in North America, as over 60 companies make the shift
4 Day Week Global press release
Monday 3rd October, 2022
Progress towards a four-day week in North America, as over 60 companies make the shift
Today marks the latest step towards a four-day week for North America, as over 60 companies across the continent are now getting an extra day off per week, with no loss of pay. A group of almost 30 pioneering organisations will today follow others who started their journey earlier this year, by embarking on the latest phase of a six-month pilot program, coordinated by non-profit organisation, 4 Day Week Global.
These companies, who cumulatively employ over 4,000 people, join hundreds of other pilot participants around the world in countries like Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and most notably, the UK, where mid-point results of the largest trial of its kind recently revealed very positive outcomes.
Speaking ahead of today’s launch, 4 Day Week Global CEO, Joe O’Connor expressed excitement over the enthusiasm shown by companies thus far.
“We’re delighted to have such an assortment of innovative and bold business leaders on board this round of our pilot. Early evidence has already proven the four-day week’s potential for greatness, from improved business productivity to greater worker wellbeing, so we look forward to these organisations experiencing those benefits first-hand.
“As more and more companies join four-day week trials, our capacity to gather and analyse data grows. This will ultimately lead us to a point where we can irrefutably demonstrate how the four-day week can be successfully implemented across every sector of the economy. So, not only are these participants building a better future for themselves, but they are paving the way towards a widespread application of reduced-hour, output-focused working and for that, should be celebrated,” he said.
Some organisations taking part in this phase of the pilot include:
US
Search Engine Journal (Media & Publishing)
Peck Peck + Associates (Architecture & Interior Design)
Aeolidia (Graphic & Web Design
Immersed Games (Educational Technology)
SIY Global (Corporate Training)
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (Non-profit)
Friendly Design Co (Graphic Design)
Canada
Pb+j (Design & Marketing)
Sensei Labs Inc. (Technology/Enterprise SaaS)
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada (Non-profit)
Atelier L'Abri (Architecture)
Produce8 (Technology/SaaS)
PRAXIS (Creative Services)
Jenise Uehara is CEO at Search Engine Journal, a media and publishing company participating in the trial. She said, “Search Engine Journal’s transition to a four-day week represents the best of our company’s shared belief system. We believe leadership has both a commercial imperative to mind the bottom line, and a moral imperative to support work-life balance for all.
“We also believe in the studies that show empowered workers are more productive. While preparing for a four-day week, our staff-led committee has already discovered productivity opportunities. We know we will find more. We would not have been motivated to find and fix these inefficiencies had we not embraced a four-day week program with goals of 100% productivity, 100% of the pay, in 80% of the time.
“Sometimes the best agent of change is disruption. Search Engine Journal will now have a precious gift we can give back to staff and their families: more time.”
Jon Leland is Chief Strategy Officer at Kickstarter, a public benefit corporation who recently completed their six-month four-day week trial. He said, “We decided to pilot the four-day week after looking at the mounting evidence that it could provide substantial benefits to our business, employees, and the community. After six months, we've found the research to be true.
“Our productivity has been up, with employees more engaged, more focused and more committed to remaining at Kickstarter. They're also getting time back to rest, spend time with their families, pursue creative projects and volunteer. We hope other employers look at our experience and decide to adopt a four-day week for the benefit of their mission, their employees, and the public.”
Juliet Schor is Professor of Sociology at Boston College, and lead researcher on the pilot. She said, “We're very pleased to be starting a new pilot with a great group of US and Canadian companies.
“The pilots we've run so far have had outstanding results. Companies are reporting that the four-day week has been a great success and that they'll be continuing. Employees are benefitting too - experiencing significantly less burnout, better work-family balance and mental health. And they're suffering from much less sleep deprivation. Companies and their employees are benefitting from reducing the work week.”
ENDS
For more information, contact:
media@4dayweek.com
About 4 Day Week Global:
4 Day Week Global was founded in New Zealand by 4 Day Week architect Andrew Barnes alongside entrepreneur and philanthropist Charlotte Lockhart in 2019, following the world-renowned success of their pioneering trial of the four-day working week in Perpetual Guardian in 2018.
Since then, 4 Day Week Global has supported hundreds of companies from a variety of industries all over the world to run four-day week trials, or make the permanent transition to reduced hour, productivity focused working.
Their approach is based on the 100-80-100™ principle designed by Lockhart alongside the Perpetual Guardian trial in 2018 - 100% of the pay, for 80% of the time, in exchange for a commitment to delivering 100% of the output.
This model is proven to deliver both improved company productivity, efficiency and performance, alongside greater employee wellbeing, engagement, and work-life balance. Research from leading international academics suggest the four-day working week can be a truly triple-dividend policy: better for the economy, better for society, and better for the environment.
Initially established as a networking community for like-minded people and organizations interested in exploring the shorter working week and as a vehicle for global advocacy, 4 Day Week Global has grown to become the global market leader in supporting businesses and governments who wish to experiment with or implement work time reduction.
The development of 4 Day Week Global's pilot programme in 2021 has enabled the organization to respond to the exponential growth in demand for and interest in the four-day working week, and to shift to a model which can uniquely support employers and employees to run trials at scale.
The organization has now joined forces with some of the world's most prominent and preeminent experts in this field, including bringing on board dynamic leader and campaigner Joe O'Connor as chief executive officer, and author, speaker and consultant Alex Soojung-Kim Pang as global programs and development manager.
Its ambition is to make a four-day working week the new default and reduced working time the new standard. Its intention is to lead and grow the global movement for a shorter working week to make this a reality all over the world.
Buy Andrew Barnes’ book, ‘The 4 Day Week; How the flexible work revolution can increase productivity, profitability and well-being, and create a sustainable future’, here.
