A 4-day workweek adds an extra hour to everyone’s sleep

Working for only 32 hours — or four days — a week makes for a better sleep schedule. A new study by economist Juliet Schor suggests that employees who transitioned to a four-day workweek clocked in about seven hours and 58 minutes of sleep per night. 

This is an hour more than those working five days a week.

Schor surveyed 304 workers at 16 companies across three countries — the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and Australia — as part of a six-month trial run by the nonprofit 4 Day Week Global.

Sleep deprivation drastically fell for those in the study who changed to a four-day week. The percentage of those who had been getting less than seven hours of sleep a night decreased from 42.6% to 14.5%.

The four-day workweek has been a rising topic among top business executives. The UK began its six-month trial last June to test out if this approach would be effective for its employees

Of 41 of those companies that responded to a mid-point check-in survey, 88% said the experiment was working “well” and 86% said they’d were “likely” or “extremely likely” to consider keeping the four-day schedule.

How will this data help your company?

With the business world coming back alive after two years of lockdowns and quarantines, people are starting to question if they want to come back to the usual 9-5, 40 hours per week set up. 

They have been stuck isolated at home for a long time and they had started to wonder whether about the positives of a good work-life balance. 

Perhaps, knowing these data would urge the company to adapt to the new ways instead of sticking to the old and traditional ones. In turn, talent would come flocking to these newly-transformed companies instead of running towards the exit.

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