If you ever feel like the five-day workweek leaves you burned out, you may not be imagining it.
A new global study led by Boston College researchers Wen Fan and Juliet Schor found fresh evidence that four-day workweeks — without a pay cut — are beneficial for employees’ well-being.
Over a six-month period, the researchers tracked nearly 2,896 employees across 141 organizations in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand. They also tracked a control group of 300 people working a traditional five-day workweek.
These organizations voluntarily participated in the four-day workweek trials and were given eight weeks ahead of time to restructure their workflows to maintain productivity. Some chose to eliminate activities such as unnecessary meetings to meet their new goals.
Researchers asked questions such as “How would you rate your mental health?” to evaluate workers’ well-being two weeks before the trial started, and again six months into their new schedule.
According to the study’s results, after six months of only working four days a week, workers self-reported less burnout, better sleep, and higher job satisfaction.
Schor, an economist and sociologist at Boston College, told Business Insider that six months into their new schedule, 67% of workers reported reduced levels of burnout, 41% said their mental health improved, and 38% experienced fewer issues with sleep. The control group of workers did not show a meaningful change in any of the metrics.
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While the study did not specifically measure productivity — and the responses were self-reported — when compared to before the change in schedule, 52% of workers said they became more productive despite working fewer hours.
Employees who saw their work time reduced by at least eight hours a week experienced the biggest gains in mental and physical well-being, but even smaller reductions delivered measurable benefits across all metrics, compared to workers at 12 companies that stuck with the traditional five-day schedule.
The new findings add to a growing body of evidence in favor of the four-day model.
A widely cited 2022 trial in the UK tracked 3,300 workers at 73 companies who shifted to a four-day workweek, and most supervisors of those workers reported either stable or boosted productivity.
Belgium introduced a law in late 2022 allowing workers to compress their 40-hour week into four longer days without losing pay, while Iceland is taking a similar approach for most workers by simply reducing hours.
Lithuania allows public sector workers with young children to work 32-hour weeks at full pay, and Dubai is trialing a temporary four‑day week for public sector employees throughout the summer.