The 4-day Hybrid Work Model is the Future

Evidence is mounting 4-day hybrid work is accelerating adoption.

At Datascience Learning Center I like to sometimes talk about the future of work. While WFM has gained momentum with many companies going completely remote with global distributed teams, there’s a new movement that is gaining momentum.

The 4-Day Work Week is the New Trend

In 2022 thus far more companies are piloting 4-day work weeks and hybrid work (with around 50% WFM). There is some evidence this will likely end up as the future of work for an increasing number of companies especially in technology.

Workers in Belgium will soon be able to choose a four-day week under a series of labour market reforms announced in mid February, 2022.

Many Don’t Want to Return to the Office

Alida Inc., a Toronto-based software company with nearly 500 employees, is introducing a four-day work week for all its staff across several countries, including Canada.

Flexible and hybrid working styles are the new normal following the COVID-19 pandemic. Ironing out the details is up to each work culture with its own specific leaders and employee concerns. It’s taken Buffer, a lot of work but if it’s a priority it can be made to work.

Great Resignation Advocates New Levels of Work Flexibility

In many places in the world, a lot of global business travel won’t return to 2019 levels ever again. Just as the future of work will be more flexible. The Great resignation means talent have more choices and industries need to adapt to employee preferences.

Flexible and hybrid working styles are highly likely to become the new normal following the COVID-19 pandemic. A 4-day work week is increasing in its widespread adoption and various pilots in an effort to improve employee retention, mental health and productivity.

Indeed the world’s largest economy, the US, has also seen its momentum growing, with nearly a hundred members of the US Congress recently endorsing the creation of a 32-hour workweek. Moreover, the data available from large-scale experiments have provided evidence suggesting that a four-day workweek is the future.

Organizations are Prioritizing Mental Health

What would a 32-hour workweek with hybrid work look and feel like for most employees? In practice, Friday would feel more like an informal half day, as much of the world already does. Boundaries between leisure and work continue to blur however, as people who WFM often do more.

There are serious pros and cons to a 4-day work week and to a hybrid work routine as well. It’s even possible AI technology will significantly disrupt every aspect of every industry in every country including how and when we work. Within the near future, we’re likely to see an increase in remote and more flexible work schedules like the 4 day work week. This is not just due to Covid-19 changing our work patterns and having new software like Zoom and Teams but how the AI-human hybrid work might evolve in some sectors.

The Toronto company said the decision for the shortened work week came from employee feedback and was driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pilot program, they said, is meant to help them better understand how the organization and staff respond to the four-day work week, with the hope to make it permanent. A lot of pilots are successful and the new routine becomes permanent.

“Employees today are juggling burnout, constantly changing government restrictions and their families’ health and safety. Our goal with this trial is to further establish a culture where we celebrate balance with increased flexibility and trust, resulting in happier and more productive employees.”

A 4-Day Work Week can Attract and Retain Talent

A 4-day work week is also attractive to new workers and employee retention programs and can help reduce churn in some sectors.

Importantly a shorter work week seems to increase employee satisfaction. Surprisingly it does not seem to reduce productivity, it may even increase it. Productivity is undoubtedly crucial to a prosperous economy, and opponents of a four-day workweek often argue that, intuitively, one less day of work would result in decreased output. Nevertheless, an in-depth analysis conducted at Stanford has debunked this belief.

Buffer concluded the productivity debate as such:

“Since the intention was to give temporary relief from typical expectations to teammates during an especially hard and unprecedented time, we did not set goals around productivity or results. In fact, we expected a tangible drop in productivity due to reduced hours.

However, due to increased rest and reflection, many of you have shared that you felt your weekly productivity was in fact not all that different, and that your quality of work was higher while experiencing improved overall wellbeing.”

Globally we’ve heard signs that productivity is not the key issue here.

Microsoft Japan tested this shortened work schedule for its 2,300-person workforce for five consecutive weeks in 2019 and saw its productivity increase by a staggering 40%. Similarly, more recent trials in Iceland have shown that “productivity remained the same or improved in the majority of workplaces.”

Some companies, like Perpetual Guardian from New Zealand, are already realising the benefits of a 4 day work. Not only does a 4 day work week increase employee satisfaction, company commitment and teamwork, but it also decreases stress levels. Could simply being happier be the key to greater levels of engagement and productivity? Clearly always being on the edge of burnout is not something GenZ or Alpha cohorts will think is normal.

Many argue that a 4-day work week is also a better work-life balance scenario for women. Many women were forced to leave the labor force due to the Covid-19 crisis. A four-day, 32-hour workweek would enable working people, regardless of gender, to have more time to fulfil childcare and other family and personal responsibilities, without leaving the workforce.

In 2021, the US Census Bureau reported that approximately 10 million American women are not in the workforce and staying with their young children; the number was 1.4 million before the pandemic. So clearly labor participation would be boosted by a 4-day work week. It could also help many people who have significant family responsibilities like aging parents.

Given the circumstances, it can be deeply meaningful for societies to provide working people with a better chance at balancing caring and working responsibilities, truthfully both WFM, hybrid work and a four-day workweek go a long way to improving how we manage our lives and juggle our various responsibilities, prioritizing without sacrificing our financial or mental health well-being.

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I’m hoping this Newsletter can help, inform and inspire someone out there.

Thanks for reading!