Could this be the case study that proves to your boss a four-day workweek is more efficient?
A company based in New Zealand trialled out a four-day workweek and the results were so impressive, that the firm hopes to make the changes permanent.
Perpetual Guardian – which manages wills and estates – told its 240 employees that during March and April, they would be paid for a five-day week but would only have to work 32 hours instead of the usual 40.
The firm then asked two researchers to study the effects of the new workweek on staff members during the experiment and the results were impressive.
Findings indicated that the two-month trial gave employees the chance to spend more time with their families, shop, exercise and cook. In addition to this, the newfound flexibility was found to benefit working mothers the most.
As a consequence, findings indicated a 24 percent improvement in work-life balance and report also showed that staff members felt more energised.
Jarrod Haar, a human resources professor at Auckland University of Technology, revealed: “Supervisors said staff were more creative, their attendance was better, they were on time, and they didn’t leave early or take long breaks.”
Workers also found new ways to increase their productivity in the workplace and reduced meetings from two hours to 30 minutes.
“They worked out where they were wasting time and worked smarter, not harder,” Haar added.
But Perpetual Guardian isn’t the first company to trial out a shorter workweek. A Swedish care home recently swapped to six-hour work days and reported an increase in the amount of work completed.
BRB, just off to plant these stats on our boss’s desk.
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