The world's biggest trial of the four-day week is underway in the UK where more than 3300 workers and 70 companies are leaving Monday-to-Friday behind.
The pilot runs for six months and is organised by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College.
4 Day Week Global co-founder New Zealander Andrew Barnes first trialled an extra day off at his Aotearoa company Perpetual Guardian in 2018, and has been doing it ever since, citing increased productivity and happier employees.
"We're very strict about it. We run the 100-80-100 rule - 100 percent five-day pay, 80 percent five-day time - provided we get 100 percent of five-day productivity, that's our model. It's not about cramming 40 hours into four days."
He told Morning Report he was seeing higher than 100 percent productivity, and "that's the thing that was the big surprise".
"Once you eliminate a lot of the busyness that impacts companies and employees, you find that actually productivity goes up. So on average across the thousands of companies around the world that have implemented this, they are seeing productivity gains ... 15 to 40 percent."
He said interruptions in an open-plan office was one of the factors that drove down productivity.
"Statistically were only productive for about three hours a day.
"Our research indicates that with the four-day week there was actually more collegiate activity than there was before."
He said the experiment transcended industries explaining that companies like Volkswagen, Panasonic, Unilever, to a fish and chips shop.
"Now we're finding that companies increasingly are using the four-day week as a tool to attract and retain the highest quality staff."
RNZ
