Name: Is a four-day week the future of work? - What in the World podcast, BBC World Service
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If you look at what the World Health Organization says, regularly working long hours raises the risk of stroke, of heart disease, and

Japan, for example, has such a strong culture of overwork that they even have a term for death by overwork.

this is what in the World, the podcast for all of your news, trends and talking points from the BBC World Service.

What if every week we could have three mornings of lions instead of two?

The four day work week is being trialled across the world.

And for some people, it feels like they're finally hitting snooze on the burnout.

A recent study found that people who work four days instead of five say that they feel more productive and they feel better and happier working fewer hours.

But does this actually work in practice for every type of job and in every culture?

And if the results are so clear, then why aren't we doing it already?

Well, here in the studio with me to break this down is the BBC's global health reporter, Sophia Bettyzer.

Why do we even work five days in the first place?

Something that a lot of people are probably asking.

It just feels like a routine that we've got ourselves into.

But it's sort of only been the case for the last hundred years.

Before that, people actually used to work six or even seven days a week.

So what happened is that at the beginning of the 20th century, factory workers started demanding shorter hours, and

And it was then popularized by big companies like Ford, which actually realized that if they gave people two days off, they would come back more productive.

But if you think about it, 100 years ago, we were a society mostly based on agriculture, on factory workers, and

Working hours have stayed essentially the same.

If, if there can be change from seven or six to five, then maybe there can actually be changed from, from five to four.

you have been speaking to researchers and campaigners who have been trying to make this happen, and

The four day week is based on a principle that's called 180, 100.

So what that means is that you work for 100% of the pay, but

As long as you keep up 100% of your productivity.

And the key here is that it's not, it's not about Cramming in five days worth of work into four.

So it's not about doing really long hours.

And actually what's interesting is that research says that that's actually got, that has the opposite effect.

So that makes, that leads to stress, to burnout.

So it's not about that, it's about working smarter and cutting waste.

So for example, shorter meetings, fewer meetings, better use of.

And what campaigners for the four day week are saying is that with AI now automating a lot of our tasks, this is a really good time.

And like now more than ever, it is really possible to achieve that 180, 100 goal.

So essentially researchers from Boston College looked at 141 companies that decided to trial the four day week.

The U.S. canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.

And what they looked at is four components.

They looked at job satisfaction, burnout, physical health and mental health.

And they found that overwhelmingly people reported being happier, being more satisfied and being sort of more better at their jobs when they switched to a four day week.

And what's interesting is that the trial is over now, but

about 90% of the people that took part the decided to keep doing it and the companies let them.

Yeah, that's amazing because I would have thought that was one of the big barriers to this bosses wanting things, not wanting change, shall we say.

But the countries you mentioned, first of all, they're all western countries, something we should probably talk about a little bit.

And the second thing is that in this study people, it was self reported, right.

So people might have just said that they, they were just as productive because I mean, what would you, what would you say?

I could do five episodes of the podcast in four days.

The results the researchers got came from employees.

So there is a chance that they might have exaggerated the benefits because they wanted that extra day off.

And honestly, I mean, I don't blame them.

And then the other thing is that all the companies that took part in the trial, they did it voluntarily.

So I think when you talk about a barrier being bosses who are skeptical, clearly they were already kind of open minded and thinking about this idea.

And then the other thing, as you said, precisely this sort of trial took part only in western countries.

So it doesn't really take into account how developed a country is, or what work culture looks like in that country.

For example, if you take Africa, a lot of people in many African countries work in the informal sector in mining.

And so, I mean, they're nowhere near this sort of conversation.

Were all of the companies that trialed this out, were they kind of standard office jobs, quite flexible ones?

It was mostly office jobs, but it was also restaurants, for example, or care sector.

But it is easier to implement this in an office job.

So for example, a startup that employs 20 people, for them, it's a lot easier to decide to try and work four days a week.

But if you've got a big corporation with offices around the world, different departments, different time zones, a bit like the BBC, it's really difficult and it will definitely not look the same for everybody.

You've been speaking to people in the companies that have done some of these trials.

Yes, I wanted to speak to some employers who kind of said to me that they implemented it and it worked.

And I spoke to Charles, who is from South Africa and runs a counseling center in Cape Town, and

he said that for him implementing the four day week was like, it changed everything.

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Is a four-day week the future of work? - What in the World podcast, BBC World Service

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