For the next six months, thousands of people across the U.K. will be working 32 hours a week in the largest four-day workweek pilot the world has ever seen.
The experiment includes more than 3,300 people across 70 companies in industries ranging from health care to local fish and chip shops. It’s being put on by 4 Day Week Global, the 4 Day Week Campaign, the U.K.-based think tank Autonomy, and researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College.
The idea is pretty simple. Workers make the same amount of money they would for a 40-hour workweek, but they only work 80% of the time. In exchange for fewer hours, workers commit to maintaining the productivity they would in a five-day workweek.
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The outcomes of a 32-hour workweek are something that Will Stronge, director of research at Autonomy, focuses on. Stronge, who is also the co-author of Overtime: Why We Need A Shorter Working Week, told NPR’s Life Kit podcast last year that in some ways the five-day workweek is outdated and leads to something he calls the creep of overtime into our personal lives.
“Our working culture has changed to be one where it’s much more about going above and beyond — working beyond your hours either for better career prospects or simply because it is demanded of you by your boss,” he said. “Now, during the pandemic, you’re in your living room with your laptop. So it’s hard to switch off this creep which has infiltrated our working lives.”
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Article URL : https://www.npr.org/2022/06/07/1103591879/a-big-32-hour-workweek-test-is-underway-supporters-think-it-could-help-productiv