A New Zealand company which tried a four-day working week for its employees has declared the unique experiment a success. Perpetual Guardian carried out the eight-week trial earlier this year, with staff still paid as if they were working a normal five-day week.
The trial tested whether the shortened work week was beneficial to both the company and its more than 200 employees and the impact it had on office productivity. The company announced the results of the experiment on Wednesday, with staff engagement increasing by 24 per cent during the trial.
Staff were more creative, had fewer sick days, came on time and finished work early less often. “What we’ve seen is a massive increase in engagement and staff satisfaction about the work they do, a massive increase in staff intention to continue to work with the company and we’ve seen no drop in productivity,” the manager Andrew Barnes said. “Our leadership team reported that there was broadly no change in company outputs pre and during the trial.”
Data obtained during the trial was analysed by academics, including University of Auckland Business School lecturer Dr Helen Delaney. Dr Delaney said some staff struggled with the shorter week, including one employee who said they would rather be at work because they were bored. “Another employee told a co-worker’s story of ‘struggling to figure out what to do with the day off’ and ultimately this person ‘learnt to spend some time with herself, which was quite an important thing to learn how to do’,” she added.
In general, only a handful of staff reported problems with the changed working week, Dr Delaney said. Mr Barnes said now the results are in, he would like to see it carried out in the company soon. He is in talks with the board to make it a reality.
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