Is it over for workplace traditionalists? Two-thirds of businesses are open to a four-day-week after 200 have already made the move permanent in the UK…
In 2025, the standard five-day work week is starting to look like it might become a thing of the past. This comes as more businesses embrace flexibility and explore new ways to attract and retain employees by implementing policies such as, the four-day-week, hybrid working, remote working and flexible hours.
According to the latest statistics from the Four-Day-Week Foundation, over 200 UK companies have now officially signed up to work a permanent four-day-week. And despite many large companies and business leaders pushing return-to-office mandates and rejecting and criticising it, nearly two-thirds (59%) of companies are still open to moving to this new way of working.
Research from Startups shows that there are plenty of sceptics of the four-day-week and there are still some blockers when it comes to large-scale rollout. Data from Tech.co’s Technology report also highlighted that there is a generational gap in support for the four-day-week.
Generational gap divides support for a four-day-week
Younger generations, unsurprisingly, are more likely to back the movement as 65% of Millennials and Gen X either would implement one or have already done so. While unsurprisingly baby boomers are less in favour of the four-day-week. Under half would only consider the policy and over a third (37%) would reject it altogether.
Specific concerns centre around people having little confidence that companies will be able to implement the policy effectively, and lack of trust that those will be able to condense their work into less time.
Despite the critics and concerns, it’s clear from vast research on the four-day-week and the numbers of businesses adopting the policy that the tide has officially turned on traditional ways of working. It’s mainly down to how the pandemic changed what people are looking for from their career and a need for a better work/life balance. Plus, the introduction and advancement of AI has also made the policy more accessible for many businesses.
A four-day-week can work successfully
Gareth Hoyle, Managing Director at Marketing Signals, successfully implemented a four-day-week at his agency over two years ago.
“We permanently moved to a four-day week, with no loss of pay and a new, shorter number of contracted hours (32) back in May 2022. Initially we introduced the change as a trial, however after the trial proved successful, we made the change permanent. The move significantly improved productivity, reduced absenteeism and has even been mentioned by those applying for roles within the business as one of the main reasons they applied.”
Cost of living crisis a catalyst for the move to a four-day-week
The cost of living crisis was one of the main catalysts for the move, an employee brought the idea to Gareth when they asked for a change in hours due to increasing childcare costs.
“Having already offered our team flexi-time and remote working, the change for us was a natural progression and fitted in with our ethos of promoting a strong work/life balance. There were several reasons behind the move including a desire for higher productivity, a wish to help team members with the rising cost of living plus a general goal of further assisting employee well-being. In addition, we believed the change would enhance our appeal to prospective employees as well as helping retain the team we already had.”
“One of the main catalysts for the move came as a result of the cost of living crisis, which led to a team member asking for a change in working hours due to increasing childcare costs. As a business we were already tentatively researching the concept of a four-day week prior to them coming to us, and this was just the push we needed to trial the new working arrangement.”
Some critics of the four-day-week say that less days means that there will be less work. They also think compressing a five-day week into four would result in increased workloads, contributing to higher levels of stress and burnout. However, Gareth disagrees.
“Sometimes less is more, and this is certainly true for a four-day week. Less days does not mean less output, quite the contrary in fact. This new model of work focuses on quality rather than quantity, and revolutionises the future of work. We already measured our teams based on output not attendance, meaning it’s incumbent on team members to produce results rather than to demonstrate how many hours they spent working on something.”
“Prior to the move we had been researching the pros and cons of the four-day week looking at various case studies from other companies, and there are definitely more pros than cons. The main benefits for me are better work/life balance and happier employees, increased productivity and efficiency, reduced costs, lower cases of burnout and hiring advantages.”
What are the challenges of moving to a shorter working week?
Gareth also highlights some of the challenges that businesses wanting to change to a four-day week could potentially face, and outlines how they can overcome them.
“It obviously wouldn’t work for every single business, but we do believe that where output can be clearly measured and managed, it is possible across many roles. However, there are many challenges that may stop a business switching to a four-day working week. I believe that the main three challenges are:
A fear of the unknown – The five day work week is something many businesses will be used to, so may worry about switching to a new way of working due to a fear of the unknown. They may struggle to know where to start or how to implement it. However, by embracing the change and challenge, many will discover new and innovative ways to tackle the hurdles they are facing. If you’re worried, speak to other businesses who have done it and voice your concerns with them to see whether they have any solutions. You could even run a poll internally to find out what your employees think and how they envision it working.
A lack of trust in the staff and processes – Results from the Startups survey suggests there are concerns around trust. Particularly nearly half (48%) have little confidence that their employer could successfully implement a four-day-week. While many employers may not trust their employees to get the work done in less time. However, if you hired someone to do a job, and you know the expected output is reasonable, then ultimately you should trust them to do the job they’re paid to do. An incentive to complete their work is obviously a longer weekend, more time to enjoy life and an improved work/life balance. You could always run a short trial as we did to see how people work and if it doesn’t, then you can move back to the old way of working, but you may be surprised what you’ll find.
Worrying about what clients would think – This should be the least of the worries but I do understand why it exists as nobody wants to provide a substandard service to their customers or clients. However, if you plan out the implementation and processes carefully, your customers should never even know you are working a four-day-week. The output to them should always remain unchanged. You could try hiring more people and juggling your operations teams to ensure five days coverage, as we have done by splitting our team into two, if you’re worried about standards slipping.”
“A good work/life balance is the key to a happy and healthy workforce, which leads to loyalty – ultimately helping our business grow. It also makes our company more attractive when it comes to recruitment, as people applying for jobs here have mentioned that the four-day-week specifically attracted them to the role. This is why we’ll never go back to the old way of working.”
More information on the move, along with some FAQs on how we do the four-day week can be found here.
