5 reasons why... we’re moving to a four-day week

As of this week, Opportunity Green will be trialling a four-day working week for all employees. We’ve been planning the change for some time – here's why we’re excited to kick-off our three-month pilot.

What does the four-day week mean to us? Our five-day working week is gone and, at least for our full-timers, ‘business as usual’ now means 28 hours spread over four days, Monday to Thursday, with Friday as an organisation-wide non-working day.

We’ll keep up with our usual workload but refine our practices to make sure that, when we’re working, we’re extra focused, well-rested and consequently more productive. Most importantly, all these changes come with no loss of pay.

This is also known as the 100: 80: 100 model. In other words, we’ll do 100% of the work we usually do in 80% of the time and receive 100% of the pay. So why is Opportunity Green joining this movement? I can’t speak for everyone but there’s quite a few reasons why I’m ready to embrace a new way of working.

Here are five good reasons why we’re making the change…

1. Staff say they want it

To test staff enthusiasm for the idea, we ran an anonymous pre-trial survey. The results showed that Opportunity Green’s employees were resoundingly in favour of testing out the four-day week, and 90% strongly support the trial.

More broadly, calls to overthrow the norm of a 9am-5.30pm, five-day working week are increasing in popularity. Campaigns are gaining traction in the UK, US, Belgium and elsewhere, and there’s increased media attention across the board.

2. We’ve done the research… it works

Four-day week sceptics will likely always exist, but we’ve made sure we inform our policy with as much of the available data on the topic that we could find. Well before the trial began, we set up a ‘Four-day Week Taskforce’ to research the logistics of the transition.

All available studies were overwhelmingly positive about the benefits of transitioning to a four-day week for both employers and employees. The world's biggest ever four-day working week pilot was concluded ‘a resounding success,’ with almost every company that took part (56 out of 61) continuing the new working pattern. Amongst other benefits, the organisations reported higher performance and productivity, as well as increased employee retention and talent attraction.

Of course, there’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ model, so what works for a different organisation might not work for us. But we’ve worked hard to develop a trial policy that is tailored to our particular needs, challenges and working culture.

3. It facilitates a better work-life balance, as well as mental and physical health

It’s important to emphasise that the four-day week is about a lot more than ‘efficiency’ or ‘being good for business’.

We pride ourselves on promoting a healthy and enjoyable work-life balance. The four-day week will help take this to the next level.

Our research shows that a shorter working week is a powerful tool to facilitate a cultural shift in favour of employee wellbeing. In the UK 4-day week pilot, 39% of employees were less stressed, 71% had reduced levels of burnout, anxiety, fatigue and sleep issues decreased, and mental and physical health  improved.

4. It’s a step towards addressing gender inequality

A four-day week can help to challenge the status quo in relation to the distribution of paid and unpaid work time across genders.

Under the five-day week model, women are far more likely to give up work to take up caring responsibilities, with women shouldering the brunt of unpaid work at home. Unequal distribution of unpaid work enables gender disparities in the workplace and hinders career progression opportunities.

In the UK, according to a report published in 2023, most part-time employment is by women (38%), compared with 14% of men. Part-time work is typically more insecure, lower paid and often offers fewer opportunities for advancement than full-time work. It also means that it’s much harder for men to do their fair share of unpaid labour.

5. It will help to tackle climate change

Mass adoption of a four-day week could have seriously positive environmental consequences. And although Opportunity Green is just one small organisation, I’m a firm believer that we should be leading by example. 

An analysis by Platform London for the 4-day Week campaign showed that a four-day week could reduce the UK’s carbon footprint by 127 million tonnes per year by 2025 (a reduction of 21.3%). That’s the same as taking 27 million cars off the road. Other research has demonstrated similarly positive consequences of reduced working hours.

Our new way of working starts this week, so it’s early days – but we’ll continue to monitor how it’s working for us as an organisation and keep reporting back.

Is your organisation operating a four-day week, or considering doing so? We’d love to hear from you if so – reach out on Twitter or LinkedIn to let us know.