Are Fridays a thing of the past?
Are you a sucker for fairy tales? With tears in her eyes, the founder of Soothing Solutions announced that no member of staff left the company in 2022… This is the 4-day week effect, as highlighted in a trial involving 27 companies that experimented with a shorter working week (and which will not be going back to 5 days).
Soothing Solutions – a Dublin-based company that manufactures cough lozenges – is pursuing its objective to expand on the international stage. Paradoxically, one less working day a week is boosting productivity, the bottom line and employee morale.
Some of the benefits of a shorter week are quite unexpected: a company’s impact on the environment, for example, is reduced, since there are fewer car journeys and plastic-wrapped take-outs!
Nevertheless, there is a caveat: while in most trials companies end up closing permanently on Fridays, some seasonal businesses have to organize shifts or suspend the measure temporarily so they can handle production peaks. Adjustments sometimes need to be made so that businesses can continue to provide quality customer service, but no company wants to rewind to 5 days.
Lastly, any business that wants to have a go can get support from the 4 Day Week Global not-for-profit community and draw on their feedback. Still not sure? None of the 27 companies in the survey reported any downsides!
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