Iceland Calls 4-Day Workweek Experiment an 'Overwhelming Success'

Researchers say an experiment in Iceland that tested out a four-day workweek has been dubbed an “overwhelming success,” NPR reports.

Said experiment stretched from 2015 to 2019, and involved workers making the same amount of money for shorter hours. Researchers say that productivity either remained the same or improved.

Similar trials are now being held in Spain (due in part to challenges brought on by COVID-19), and by a consumer goods company in New Zealand.

BBC writes that Iceland’s test of the idea was helmed by the Reykjavík City Council, as well as the Iceland national government. More than 2,500 workers (or roughly one percent of the country’s working population) participated. This included people with jobs in preschools, offices, hospitals, and companies that provide social services.

Several of those involved swapped a 40-hour week for one in which they did about 35/36 hours.

Researchers say that the trials’ success led to the renegotiating of working terms by unions in the country, and now more than 85 percent of the nation’s workforce will either get the same pay while putting in less hours, or will gain the right to do that.

Positives from the perspective of workers include reports that they were less stressed/burned out, and they also claimed improvements to their health and work-life balance. The freed up hours gave them time to do the standard stuff people do outside of work, like be with their families, do hobbies, and deal with chores around the house.

“This study shows that the world’s largest ever trial of a shorter working week in the public sector was by all measures an overwhelming success,” said Will Stronge, director of research at the UK think tank Autonomy. “It shows that the public sector is ripe for being a pioneer of shorter working weeks – and lessons can be learned for other governments.”