German Firms' 4-Day Workweek Trial Slashes Stress, Keeps Productivity High (dw.com) 22
A six-month German pilot of a four-day workweek across 45 companies demonstrated that most employees experienced reduced stress and maintained productivity, with some companies adopting optimized processes and digital tools to enhance efficiency. The report says 70% of the firms plan to continue the model. DW News reports: Earlier this year, some 45 German firms launched a 4-day workweek project to find out if such a fundamental change to how we work can achieve positive results for employers and employees. For six months, and closely watched by researchers from Munster University in Germany, the volunteer companies allowed their employees to work fewer hours without reducing their salaries. The pilot run was initiated by Berlin-based management consultancy, Intraprenor, in collaboration with the nonprofit organization 4 Day Week Global (4DWG). [...]
Julia Backmann, the scientific lead of the pilot study, says employees generally felt better with fewer hours and remained just as productive as they were with a five-day week, and, in some cases, were even more productive. Participants reported significant improvements in mental and physical health, she told DW, and showed less stress and burnout symptoms, as confirmed by data from smartwatches tracking daily stress minutes. According to Backmann's findings, two out of three employees reported fewer distractions because processes were optimized. Over half of the companies redesigned their meetings to make them less frequent and shorter, while one in four companies adopted new digital tools to boost efficiency. "The potential of shorter working hours seems to be stifled by complex processes, too many meetings, and low digitalization," said Carsten Meier from Intraprenor.
The study has also shown that participants were more physically active during the 4-day workweek, and they slept an average of 38 minutes more per week than those in the five-day control group. However, monthly sick days only dropped slightly, a statistically insignificant difference compared to the same period a year ago. Marika Platz from Munster University, who analyzed the data, said she was surprised at the number of sick days because similar studies in other countries showed a significant reduction. Another surprise, she told DW, was the lack of environmental benefits from reduced working hours during the German test as other countries reported a positive impact from offices that could be shut down completely for one day, and fewer commutes to work that resulted in higher energy savings. The reason for this was probably that some German employees took advantage of the long weekends to travel, she said, which reduced any potential energy savings. Study director Backmann stressed that the study was not about advocating for a blanket rollout of the 4-day workweek across all sectors, but rather exploring "an innovative work-time model and its effects."
Carsten Meier from the Intraprenor consultancy added that the positive results of the trial cannot be "automatically translated" into similar gains for every company in Germany.
Julia Backmann, the scientific lead of the pilot study, says employees generally felt better with fewer hours and remained just as productive as they were with a five-day week, and, in some cases, were even more productive. Participants reported significant improvements in mental and physical health, she told DW, and showed less stress and burnout symptoms, as confirmed by data from smartwatches tracking daily stress minutes. According to Backmann's findings, two out of three employees reported fewer distractions because processes were optimized. Over half of the companies redesigned their meetings to make them less frequent and shorter, while one in four companies adopted new digital tools to boost efficiency. "The potential of shorter working hours seems to be stifled by complex processes, too many meetings, and low digitalization," said Carsten Meier from Intraprenor.
The study has also shown that participants were more physically active during the 4-day workweek, and they slept an average of 38 minutes more per week than those in the five-day control group. However, monthly sick days only dropped slightly, a statistically insignificant difference compared to the same period a year ago. Marika Platz from Munster University, who analyzed the data, said she was surprised at the number of sick days because similar studies in other countries showed a significant reduction. Another surprise, she told DW, was the lack of environmental benefits from reduced working hours during the German test as other countries reported a positive impact from offices that could be shut down completely for one day, and fewer commutes to work that resulted in higher energy savings. The reason for this was probably that some German employees took advantage of the long weekends to travel, she said, which reduced any potential energy savings. Study director Backmann stressed that the study was not about advocating for a blanket rollout of the 4-day workweek across all sectors, but rather exploring "an innovative work-time model and its effects."
Carsten Meier from the Intraprenor consultancy added that the positive results of the trial cannot be "automatically translated" into similar gains for every company in Germany.
Too soon to tell (Score:5, Interesting)
A six month test while closely monitored for performance changes... is not indicative of reality.
Do it for a few years without closely monitoring everyone, and then measure the productivity change. If it holds up over time, without someone looking over their shoulders constantly, then it is real.
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Fri meetings moritoriums are similar (Score:3)
I was thinking something similar. There's an excitement that comes with getting the benefit of a 4-day work week that is surely going to have employees putting in a bit of extra effort to ensure they don't lose it.
I worked at a company previously where Fri meetings were loosely forbidden, except for emergencies. People got their shit done M-Thu to ensure they didn't have to sit in a stupid meeting on Friday. So long as some people are working on Fri, give your employees Fri off. Remind them that it's a privilege for high productivity and if they fall behind, they're expected to get stuff done on Fri.
Really, I think in the near future with the demographics collapse, most places are going to experiment with new v
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Okay but first things first. You have to find reasonably sized companies that will suspend performance monitoring for a few years on their employees. Good luck with that.
Interesting, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Much like with UBI trials, there is an inherent fault in these studies because the employees know that it's just an experiment.
The only way to know if this, and UBI, can actually work in a "real world" scenario, is to try them in a real world scenario with no strings attached.
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I agree one reasonably expect that UBI "getting paid for doing nothing" wouldn't last. But 4 day workweek "getting paid for doing a little less" can be durable depending how agreeable is the company leadership. Wikpiedia cites several companies to apply a 4 day workweek law enacted in France in 1996: insurer Macif, agrifood companies Fleury Michon and Mamie Nova; cultural magazine Télérama. The law was repelled in 1998, but these companies chose to continue giving the same conditions to their emp
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These are real-world scenarios.
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These are real-world scenarios.
Don't say that to the people sticking their fingers in their ears and saying, "LA LA LA CAN'T HEAR YOU" anytime allowing employees a little more free time is mentioned as a net positive.
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No idea whether these people have lives so empty that work is all they have or whether they have some other defect.
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Only anecdotal, but I had the opportunity to take the hours of a five day, 40-hour work week and put them in over four days. It was without any doubt the most productive, happiest time I've ever spent on the job. Every week had a three day weekend, and that was frickin' bliss. Performance evaluations on those of us involved in the experiment were unequivocal. The extra couple of hours from Monday to Thursday meant zero. They had no impact whatsoever on my home life.
Our trial was so successful they made
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I had a job back in the 80s where I normally worked 44hrs over 4 day with 3 consecutive days off.
Was great while it lasted but a recession put an end to that.
Umlauts are a problem. (Score:3)
Such a surprise (Score:3)
Overworking your people is bad for productivity. Of course, the "slave holder" mind-set employers are too stupid to see that.
Soon in the US (Score:4, Funny)
Meanwhile, in the US soon to have a 7 day workweek (none of which is overtime) to make up for all the immigrants we are about to send back.
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Ah yes, the hazards of Exempt status.
On the other hand, how many of those immigrants were properly classed as exempt employees?
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If that's true, then wages should go up to compete for the workers we do have. Goods and services will also raise in price to cover the higher wages and of course you will pay more taxes on higher wages. Sounds like a win win win if you ask me.
People with actual skills will still be able to take weekends off. Have no doubt.
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now do it for hours of sleep
Flawed data from a skewed test? (Score:2)
From the article:
A closer look at the design of the study, however, might raise some doubt about how useful the findings are.
Two companies voluntarily dropped out in the course of the six months, and two others had to be excluded from the evaluation. Of the remaining 41 participating companies, only about a third reduced weekly working hours by an entire day.
Around 20% reduced hours by between 11% and 19% per day, while about half cut work time by less than 10%, or roughly four hours per week. So, in total
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Even the summary says it wouldn't work for every sector of the economy, but at the same time, I know for a fact I've worked at multiple companies where I was neither given nor allowed to find for myself a total of more than 1 day of work every week, and I was actually instructed directly that at all other times for the other 32 hours my job was to just "look busy."