Expansion of the '4-Day Workweek' Across Industries... UK Companies Permanently Adopt It

Large-scale Experiment in 2022 with Over 70 Participating Companies
89% of Participants Say "Will Continue Even After Experiment Ends"
Domestic Companies Like POSCO, SK, Daemyung Also Join One After Another

Discussions about the '4-day workweek' are spreading across industries both domestically and internationally. In the UK, most companies that participated in the 4-day workweek trial have reportedly adopted the system permanently.

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On the 24th (local time), the US economic news channel CNBC cited Will Stronge, head of the UK think tank Autonomy, reporting that almost all companies participating in the UK's 4-day workweek experiment decided to maintain the 4-day workweek one year after the trial.

The experiment, conducted over six months in 2022, was planned by Autonomy, the nonprofit organization 4 Day Week Global, and researchers from Oxford University, Cambridge University, and Boston University, involving over 70 companies and more than 3,300 participants. This is the largest-scale experiment of its kind worldwide.

Among the 61 companies participating in the 2023 follow-up experiment, at least 54 companies, accounting for 89%, are still implementing the system. Additionally, 31 companies (51%) have decided to permanently switch to the 4-day workweek.

According to a recent follow-up research report released by Autonomy, all project managers and CEOs consulted responded that the 4-day workweek had a positive impact on their organizations. More than half (55%) rated the impact as "very positive."

Among the surveyed companies, 82% said the 4-day workweek positively affected employee welfare. Fifty percent reported a positive impact on reducing employee turnover, and 32% noted noticeable improvements in recruitment. Furthermore, employees' physical and mental health, work-life balance significantly improved over six months, with burnout reduction and increased life satisfaction being stably maintained.

Stronge stated, "The improvements in physical and mental health, work-life balance, and overall life satisfaction found at the end of the experiment, as well as the reduction in burnout, have been maintained for one year."

Juliet Schor, a sociology professor at Boston College who authored the report, evaluated, "These research results show that the positive effects of reduced working hours are generally sustained over time and, in some cases, continue to improve."

Recently, as productivity has been maintained while worker stress has decreased, the effects and success stories of the 4-day workweek are increasing worldwide. Countries such as Iceland, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, and Japan are adopting the 4-day workweek according to their own cultures and labor market conditions. Domestically, companies like POSCO, SK Group, Samsung Electronics, and Daemyung Sono Group are partially operating the 4-day workweek.