The benefits companies are seeing after embracing 4-day workweek

Nearly one-third of large U.S. firms are exploring new schedules like the four-day workweek. Economics correspondent Paul Solman takes a look at what happened at some companies that tried out a four-day, 32-hour week at the same pay.
William Brangham:
Nearly one-third of large U.S. firms are exploring new work schedules for their employees.
Economics correspondent Paul Solman takes a look at some companies that are trying out a four-day, 32-hour week with the same pay.
Paul Solman:
At Metro Caring in Denver, the food pantry is crazy busy. There were 45,000 visits last year, not far off the 47,000 at the start of the pandemic.
Teva Sienicki, CEO-Visionary, Metro Caring:
I came out of the pandemic just exhausted, frankly.
Paul Solman:
CEO Teva Sienicki felt overworked and overwhelmed.
Teva Sienicki:
I worked far too many hours. Hunger has been steadily growing. I was really feeling discouraged. I just don’t see us making progress. And so that landed really heavily on me.
Paul Solman:
And on many of her co-workers.
Teva Sienicki:
We were experiencing a lot of burnout on staff, and feeling like we were treading water around our mission.
Paul Solman:
Cory Scrivner oversees food procurement and distribution.
Cory Scrivner, Food Access Manager, Metro Caring:
We have had four different food access managers in the last four years. It has 1000 percent been a burnout factor with every single one of the last three previous ones.
Paul Solman:
In fact, Sienicki almost quit.
Teva Sienicki:
Burnout among nonprofit CEOs and nonprofit employees was higher than any other industry. Probably like four out of 10 left the field. I was nearly there.
Paul Solman:
Instead, though, she took a sabbatical and came back with a proposal, a four-day workweek.
Teva Sienicki:
If you can have a more balanced life and work fewer hours, you actually bring more creativity to your job and you bring more efficiency. And those hours that you do work mean more.
Paul Solman:
Alex Pang has written about working less, runs research and innovation at nonprofit four day week global.
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, 4 Day Week Global: If you’re in an industry in which there are serious challenges with recruitment and retention, with work-life balance, or if you have concerns about the sustainability of your organization, a four-day week is a great way to address all of those challenges simultaneously.
Paul Solman:
Hey, Bernie Sanders thinks so. He recently introduced a Senate bill to reduce the standard workweek to 32 hours.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT):
The sad reality is Americans now work more hours than the people of any other wealthy nation.
Paul Solman:
Now, look, a shorter workweek is hardly a new idea. In 1930, given ever-increasing output per person, increasing productivity that is, economist John Maynard Keynes foresaw a 15-hour workweek in 100 years.
In 1956, vice President Richard Nixon predicted a four-day workweek in the — quote — “not-too-distant future.” That future is yet to arrive, but thanks perhaps to COVID, companies have begun to shift.
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang:
The pandemic had forced a lot of companies to change how they had worked, and so they were more open to the idea of playing around with work time.
Paul Solman:
As were workers.
Nicholas Bloom, Stanford University:
We all realize our own mortality.
Paul Solman:
Stanford’s Nicholas Bloom.
Nicholas Bloom:
More than a million Americans have died. You should enjoy life while you’re here. Work from home has been such a bonanza. So, I have taught hundreds, thousands of managers, employees. And they’re kind of like, why didn’t we do this earlier?
And so as soon as you start thinking like that, you think, well, what else is there? And other things like the four-day week, the whole bunch of changes come into play.
Paul Solman:
Metro Caring’s pilot began in late summer. The staff worked Monday through Thursday, took Fridays off, 32 hours of work, same pay.
Teva Sienicki:
There’s definitely a learning curve, right? Like, it doesn’t just like happen, like you’re just like, oh, I’m going to be efficient.
Paul Solman:
To get their work done in eight fewer hours, employees turned off computer alerts, reorganized their time.
Teva Sienicki:
A lot of those have been around meetings and e-mails, not responding right away, but like setting aside concentrated blocks, and how to make meetings that are normally an hour into 15 minutes.
Paul Solman:
A shortened week increases focus, says Graye Miller.
Graye Miller (Food Access Assistant, Metro Caring):
If I have to be here Monday through Friday, I am much more likely to take that half-an-hour sitting and drinking coffee or that 15 minutes stepping outside for a cigarette.
Paul Solman:
Integrity Pro Roofing also tried a four-day week.
Rae Boyce, CEO, Integrity Pro Roofing:
There are so many tangible, tactical ways that you can give your team back that additional eight hours of time.
Paul Solman:
CEO Rae Boyce says her staff focused on tasks and projects in the morning, when they were more energized, pushing meetings to the afternoon.
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang:
The average knowledge worker loses about two hours of productive time per day to overly long meetings, to poorly used technology or outmoded processes. So, in a sense, for a lot of us, the four-day week is already here. We’re just spending a full day in the office sitting around in meetings wondering who’s going to change the toner cartridge or talking about whatever football game.
Paul Solman:
In surveys completed in February at the end of Metro Caring’s trial, employees reported well-being had improved. Pretrial, just 8 percent were highly or very highly satisfied with their work-life balance. At the end, that figure rose to 46 percent.
At the start of the pilot, 50 percent felt burned out, by the end, half that number.
Graye Miller:
Having four days and then a three-day weekend, oh, my lord. It is rejuvenating on all levels.
The results didn’t surprise Pang. His firm helped run a 2022 trial of 61 British firms that showed benefits to workers’ health and productivity when their hours were reduced.
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang:
Mangers and companies also reported that people were collaborating better, that they were happier in the office. All of the important metrics trended in positive directions.
Paul Solman:
Bloom has his doubts, though.
Nicholas Bloom:
Very productive, well-managed American companies that are already pretty kick ass in terms of how well-managed they are, these places are very efficient. It’s not that easy to take a day out and produce the same amount.
Paul Solman:
At Integrity Pro Roofing, a strictly four-day workweek did not work year-round.
Rae Boyce:
Roofing and construction tends to be very seasonal.
Paul Solman:
So employees now work fewer hours during the off-season, but:
Rae Boyce:
The summer and the fall is our busiest season. And so we have found that there are times where we do need to ask our team to be flexible and to come back to a five-day workweek when we’re experiencing that type of a high volume.
Paul Solman:
Still, Boyce remains committed to a shorter week for her employees the rest of the year.
Rae Boyce:
Time is our most precious resource. We have a really short life. So if there’s any ways that we could give them some additional time, that’s really what we wanted to focus on.
Paul Solman:
At Metro Caring, the four-day workweek created some problems of its own.
Cory Scrivner:
We rely on donations and foundations and grant funding to be able to exist in the way that we do. And they don’t have a four-day workweek. They don’t have a three-day weekend. There are deadlines that are due on Friday. I often miss e-mails that are important that come on Fridays.
We really do need to be available for some of these bigger deadlines.
Paul Solman:
As a result, CEO Sienicki still has to put in hours on Fridays.
Teva Sienicki:
I don’t know that all of us are two 32 hours yet. I think some of us, at least on some weeks, are at 35 hours. But, frankly, 35 hours is way better than the 50 hours I was working prior to this trial.
Paul Solman:
Metro Caring plans to make the shorter workweek permanent, even as they work out the details.
Teva Sienicki:
It may not be exactly like we have done the trial, right? Maybe we go to a 35-hour workweek, or maybe we look at a little bit more flexibility.
Paul Solman:
Different schedules, perhaps.
Cory Scrivner:
Maybe it looks like one team works a different set of days than another team.
Paul Solman:
And that flexibility may help with retention.
Cory Scrivner thinks she will last longer than her three predecessors.
Cory Scrivner:
I’m feeling really good. I’m not leaving.
(LAUGHTER)
Cory Scrivner:
I broke the curse.
Paul Solman:
Scrivner bucked the burnout trend, she says, thanks in part to the four-day workweek.
For the “PBS NewsHour,” Paul Solman.