The Four Day Week: Assessing global trials of reduced work time with no reduction in pay: Evidence from Ireland

Research suggests that worktime reduction is a multi-dividend policy that can improve human wellbeing, organisational performance, and environmental outcomes. Social benefits include reduced stress and burnout for employees and more time for family, community, and self. Economic benefits depend on the form of worktime reduction. Where it is accomplished without loss or even gains in productivity, it is beneficial for companies’ bottom lines. Environmental benefits can accrue reduced energy expended in commuting, especially with four-day work weeks; increases in low carbon but time-intensive practices for households; and reduced carbon emissions due to trading income for a time. As the most popular form of worktime reduction, a four-day, 32-hour workweek has been gaining momentum in recent years. Given this growth in interest, Four Day Week Global (4DWG) began supporting companies and non-profit organisations that wanted to try a four-day, 32-hour workweek with no reduction in pay. Boston College leads the research team in partnership with University College Dublin, Cambridge University and other academic partners. We are constructing a sizeable quantitative database of employee outcomes across different countries and types of companies and organisations. We collected data on time use, subjective wellbeing, physical and mental health, labour market behaviour, and energy use with a wide-ranging instrument. In February 2022, 4DWG launched the first of several coordinated international trials. It involved 614 employees across Ireland, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. The research involved (i) surveying employees at the beginning, midpoint and end of the trial, (ii) compiling time-use diaries of employees’ days off, (iii) collecting monthly data on organisational performance and (iv) interviewing employees and managers at the end of the trial1. This report presents detailed results of a subset of Irish organisations and their employees participating in the trial. This group comprised 12 small to medium enterprises, primarily concentrated in the IT and professional services sectors.