From today around 70 UK businesses will trial a four-day working week, including Sheffield-based tech company Rivelin Robotics.
It will see over 3,000 workers in the UK receive the same amount of pay for four days of work.
The six-month trial is being run by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with the thinktank Autonomy, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge and Boston College.
It builds on the smaller four-day workweek pilot launched by the same organisations in the UK in January earlier this year.
“The four-day week is generally considered to be a triple-dividend policy – helping employees, companies, and the climate. Our research efforts will be digging into all of this,” said Juliet Schor, sociology professor at Boston College and pilot lead researcher.
The trial is said to be the largest of its kind and the latest example of businesses moving away from a five-day week.
The companies taking part in the trial will join fintech Atom Bank, which last November moved to a four-day working week for its 430 employees without cutting pay.
Brighton-headquartered MRL Consulting Group, a semiconductor recruiter, has had a four-day week for three years.
“Our best practice is keeping our team together as much as possible, having everyone work Monday to Thursday with a few exceptions for people who choose to work flexibly or remotely keeps our culture alive,” a spokesperson from MRL Consulting Group told UKTN. “Three years on and we’re still seeing productivity increase to the tune of 30%.”
In a report published earlier this year, it was found that 31.2% of people in Britain were looking for a four-day work week in 2022.
The UK trial follows similar ones in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the US.
“As we emerge from the pandemic, more and more companies are recognising that the new frontier for competition is quality of life, and that reduced-hour, output-focused working is the vehicle to give them a competitive edge,” said Joe O’Connor, chief executive, 4 Day Week Global.
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