When the software company Northwind announced a four-day working week last year, many employees were . They feared that five days of work into four would leave them exhausted, and that would inevitably slip.
Six months later, however, the results surprised even the managers. Productivity had remained stable, sick leave had dropped by almost a fifth, and the number of people was the lowest in the company's history.
So how did Northwind manage to fit the same amount of work into fewer days? The answer, according to the managers, had less to do with working longer hours than with wasting less time. Before the trial began, every team was asked to keep a diary of how they spent their week, and the findings were revealing: on average, employees were spending almost a third of their time in meetings, many of which had no clear purpose. As a result, the company introduced a number of simple rules. Meetings were limited to thirty minutes unless there was a very good reason to extend them, and each one had to finish with a written list of decisions. In addition, mornings were declared 'quiet time', during which were encouraged to switch off notifications and concentrate on their most demanding tasks. Crucially, salaries were not reduced, which meant that people felt the change was a genuine benefit rather than a hidden cut. One developer admitted that she had been doubtful at first, but she soon realised that she had been working for years. 'When you know you only have four days, you stop ,' she explained. 'You prioritise what really matters and you are far less tempted to check your phone every ten minutes.' Several team leaders made similar observations, noting that colleagues had become more willing to say no to unnecessary requests and to delegate tasks they would previously have kept for themselves.
Perhaps the most interesting changes, however, took place outside the office. When asked how they used their extra day, employees gave a wide variety of answers. Some parents said that they could finally spend proper time with their children without feeling guilty, while others had taken up hobbies they had abandoned years earlier, from playing the guitar to volunteering at a local animal shelter. Interestingly, very few people said they had used the time to do extra work or take on a second job. A number of even mentioned that they had started doing their shopping and household chores on Fridays, which left the weekend free for genuine rest. Psychologists have long argued that the brain needs time away from work in order to recover, and that people who are well rested tend to more creative solutions. Northwind's experience seems to support this idea, although it would be to assume that the same model could be applied everywhere. A hospital or a restaurant, for instance, cannot simply close for a day, and smaller businesses may lack the resources to reorganise their schedules. Even so, the experiment raises an important question: if a company can achieve the same results in less time, why should we continue to measure commitment by the number of hours people spend at their desks? In my view, the real lesson of the trial is not that everyone should work four days a week, but that organisations should be brave enough to question habits that nobody has challenged for decades.
Not everything went smoothly, though. Customer support teams to cover Fridays, so the company had to introduce a system. Despite these difficulties, ninety per cent of said they would refuse to go back to the old schedule.
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