- One of the world's biggest four-day work week trials is at its halfway point.
- A survey of the more than 70 UK companies participating points largely to success.
Early results are in from one of the world's biggest four-day work week trials — and they look pretty promising so far.
Seventy companies in the UK began a six-month pilot program of a four-day work week in June. On Tuesday, nonprofit 4 Day Week Global, which is spearheading the trial, released findings on the status of the program at its halfway mark.
The 70 participating companies received a check-in survey at the midway point of the trial with questions about how it was going.
Of the 41 that responded, 88% said the new schedule was working "well" for business so far, and 86% said they'd be "likely" or "extremely likely" to consider keeping a four-day work week after the pilot ends.
Claire Daniels, CEO of Trio Media, one of the participating companies, said in the press release, "The four-day week trial so far has been extremely successful for us. Productivity has remained high, with an increase in wellness for the team, along with our business performing 44% better financially."
As for a potential drop in workers' output, one of the concerns most commonly cited about four-day work weeks, 46% of respondents said their company's productivity stayed "around the same level," another 34% said it "improved slightly," and 15% reported it had "improved significantly."
Removing a day from the typical work week seemed to be the most challenging aspect of the new schedule.
The companies were asked to report how the transition to the four-day week has been on a scale of 1, being extremely challenging, to 5, being extremely smooth. Though 29% of respondents chose 5, and 49% chose 4, 20% of them selected 3, somewhere in the middle of challenging and smooth.
"We're proud to be involved in the trial and it's going well for us. It wasn't a walk in the park at the start, but no major change ever is," said Nicci Russell, the Managing Director of another participating company, Waterwise, in the press release. "We have all had to work at it - some weeks are easier than others and things like annual leave can make it harder to fit everything in - but we're much more settled with it now overall than we were at the start."
"We certainly all love the extra day out of the office and do come back refreshed," Russell added. "It's been great for our wellbeing and we're definitely more productive already."
Another company involved in the pilot, construction recruitment firm Girling Jones, told Insider in July that the four-day work week was proving to be a positive experience for workers.
"The reason we're doing it now is that people are happier," Fiona Blackwell, associate director of the company, said at the time.