Work Less, Earn the Same – The Four-Day Work Week Is Making Its Way Across Europe.
Initiatives are multiplying with promising results.
Working less to finally earn the same ...
It may sound surprising, but since telecommuting has become a part of the post-Covid business world, another organizational method is gaining ground: the four-day work week.
The principle of the four-day work week? Cut a regular week by one day, without compensating for the other four days, and without any change in your paycheck.
The pioneers in this field are the Icelanders. In 2015, this small northern European country launched a vast four-year study: 2,500 employees switched from 40 to 35 or 36 hours of work, without any financial compensation. According to the analysts who analyzed the data generated by this trial, this boosted the productivity and well-being of the employees concerned, who reported a better work-life balance.
Subsequently, Icelandic trade unions negotiated the widespread use of the scheme. Some 86% of the Icelandic workforce now benefits from reduced working hours or more flexible contracts.
All observers agree that this is a formidable tool for building loyalty, motivation, and attractiveness, at a time when companies are struggling to recruit - but it is precisely because companies should not have to hire more to compensate, otherwise they will not be able to find a job.
However, these positive aspects must be tempered. Employees may experience a halo effect: with the euphoria of the beginning, they may be more involved, and more productive, but doesn't this tend to fade away? It remains to be seen in the long term if this tendency will continue...
Some will say that Iceland is a small country with its singularities. But where it gets interesting is that Iceland is not an isolated case. The United Kingdom, too, has jumped on the bandwagon. Since Monday, June 6, 2022, and for the next six months, 3,300 voluntary employees, from more than 70 companies, all sectors included, will work 80% of their usual working time, ensuring the same productivity, and the same salary.
This pilot program, the largest in the world according to “The Guardian”, was organized by several universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, and Boston College in the United States, in collaboration with the think tanks Autonomy and 4 Day Week Global. The results, which will measure the effects on productivity and quality of life, will be announced in 2023.
The principle is often voluntary and most experiments are done at the local level to start with. This is the case in the region of Valencia in Spain, where the State has committed, after negotiations with the unions, to provide 10 million euros in grants to companies that take the plunge. At this stage, about 160 companies and more than 3,000 employees are concerned, according to the specialized press, and the initiative is “being deployed”.
Work fewer days, but not less
The four-day work week is also a way for the public sector to compete with more generous private sector companies in terms of pay. In Lithuania, for example, public sector employees with children under the age of three will be allowed to work 32 hours a week (as opposed to the usual 40), without any cut in salary, starting next year.
The scheme is also intended to address the significant gender pay gap that persists, although studies tend to show that the gap widens when women have children.
But working fewer days per week does not always mean working less at all. Belgium has launched an experiment to allow employees who wish to do so to work nine and a half hours over four days, instead of eight hours over five - a far cry from the reduction advocated by its neighbors.
The logic of flexibility is even taken a step further, with the possibility of working "a little more one week and a little less the next, which offers some flexibility to people in co-parenting situations", according to the Belgian government.
The Belgian project, which must now be submitted to the social partners for their opinion, and then to Parliament for validation, intends both to learn the lessons of the new work patterns that have emerged during the pandemic and to enable Belgium to improve its employment rate, which is currently 71%.
In France, the second-largest economy in the European Union, a large-scale survey on the pace of work has been conducted. The results published in May 2022 indicated that more than six out of ten French people would be willing to adopt a four-day week. Nearly one in three employees would even be willing to accept a pay cut.
It remains to be seen what these experiments will yield in the months and years to come, and above all, whether they will be implemented more sustainably throughout Europe to allow employees to better reconcile their private and professional lives to improve their well-being. I also assume that if it is successful, American companies will soon take an interest in the phenomenon sooner or later.
It would be interesting to see for once a fad go the opposite way of what it usually does: from the old continent to America.
Some reading
The Four-Day Work Week Is The Future Of Work. Microsoft has just proven this if necessary.