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Tech company Buffer is adopting a 4-day workweek through the end of the year to help employees deal with stress caused by coronavirus

Tech company Buffer is adopting a 4-day workweek through the end of the year to help employees deal with stress caused by coronavirus

Marguerite Ward

Buffer, a social media management software company, announced Tuesday that it's adopting a four-day workweek through the end of 2020.
This comes after the company experimented with a four-day workweek in May to help workers deal with the stress caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Employees will get to keep their full salary despite the time reduction.
Using a company-wide survey, Buffer measured employee happiness, autonomy, and stress levels.
Company leaders saw a positive increase in worker happiness and autonomy and a significant decrease in stress levels.
But the four days employees worked during the experiment were not the same across the board, which caused some planning difficulties.
Buffer plans to keep running the four-day workweek experiment through the end of 2020 and may adjust the policy to address challenges, per a company blog post.
Buffer already has some progressive company policies, including a fully remote workforce, and a transparent salary formula.
The tech company isn't the first to experiment with the schedule. Microsoft previously tried a four-day workweek in Japan and saw a 40% jump in productivity.
Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang recently called on more business leaders to adopt the setup to improve Americans' mental health.