The four-day working week | Alias Innovations

The concept of a four-day working week has become increasingly popular and attracted more attention in recent years. The idea behind the concept is that it can improve work-life balance, which also helps to increase productivity and reduce operating costs.

The concept is to reduce the number of working days from the traditional five to four a week, while maintaining and increasing work efficiency. In the following article we discuss the possibilities, origins, early introduction and current situation of the four-day working week.

Checklist

The origin of the four-day working week

The idea of reducing working hours can be traced back to the various labour movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries and the spread of mechanisation. As the rise of continuous industrialisation meant that one piece of equipment could perform the tasks of several people, the labour movements called for a reduction in working hours (Bregman), in addition to/instead of increasing productivity. The philosophers of the time (Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill), but also, surprisingly, the industrialist Henry Ford (to whom we owe the 40-hour working week (Terrell)) and Richard Nixon played a major role in this. Thus the original 60-70 hour working week gradually evolved into a 40 hour week, which remained the standard for decades despite the vision of the great thinkers.

The introduction of an explicit four-day working week is also not linked to a specific date. The first attempts date back to the late 2000s, for example the introduction of a 4-day workweek in Utah in the US for reasons of economy (Brundin), followed by a more serious trial in Iceland, where nearly 1% of workers were allowed to participate in a pilot study on the effectiveness of a 36-hour workweek between 2015 and 2019. The project was a resounding success, with 86% of the Icelandic workforce now working reduced hours (BBC).

The project was given a new impetus during the COVID-19 epidemic, as it forced employers to adopt more flexible working hours. Thus, in recent years, pilot projects to introduce a 4-day working week have been (or are still) run in several countries, including New Zealand, the UK and Spain. Among European countries, Belgium was the first to pass a law in 2022 allowing workers to choose between four- and five-day working arrangements (de Croo).

Despite all these positive examples, the 4-day working week is currently not considered to be widespread and its practical implementation depends largely on the company implementing it. Another common criticism of the concept is that it is mainly effective in white-collar jobs, and may not be the appropriate form of employment for a continuously productive enterprise.

Considerations: The possibilities for a four-day working week can vary widely depending on the organisation, the industry and the specific job. Due to the nature of the work, not all sectors can easily adapt to this model, such as healthcare, retail and other service-oriented industries that require consistent daily coverage. Moreover, the success of a four-day working week often depends on careful planning, clear communication and the ability to measure and maintain productivity levels.

How to implement a four-day working week?

This model can take several forms, depending on the organisation implementing it:

Reduced working hours: The total number of hours worked per week will be reduced, with employees working four days a week instead of five, with the same number of hours. This approach focuses on increasing productivity during the reduced hours to maintain the same level of performance.
Same working hours in fewer days: Employees will continue to work the same number of hours per week as in the standard working week, but these hours will be spread over four longer days. For example, instead of working 40 hours over five 8-hour working days, an employee may work four 10-hour days. This model retains full working hours, but aims to provide longer periods of time off to improve work-life balance and to allow for recovery (Coslor).

The above two examples are two borderline cases, the concrete implementation depends on the activity, culture and industry characteristics of the company. For example, it is possible to give all employees the Friday as a third day off, or even Wednesday as a day off during the week. In other cases, the enterprise may do an A-Week to B-Week type of breakdown, with 5 working days in A-Week and 4 working days in B-Week.

Clock

Main expectations of a four-day working week:

Improved work-life balance: One of the primary aims of the four-day working week is to give workers more time for personal fulfilment, family and relaxation, which makes them more balanced and satisfied.
Increased productivity: A growing body of research* (Haraldsson) (de Croo) suggests that workers can be just as productive in four days as in five, especially if they are more focused and motivated by the prospect of a longer weekend.
Environmental benefits: Fewer commuting days mean fewer carbon emissions and a smaller environmental footprint for both workers and employers.
Employee well-being: The extra day off is a way to reduce stress and burnout, so employees will be mentally healthier and more stable in the company. So they take less sick leave and show more commitment to their work.

Family

4 day working week at Alias

Brainstorming

Time is one of the greatest treasures of people. - The concept of a four-day working week has become increasingly popular and attracted more attention in recent years. The idea behind the concept is that it can improve work-life balance, which also helps to increase productivity and reduce operating costs.

At Alias, we looked at a team of 7 software developers working on the same project. The conditions and the how were as follows:

We launched the pilot project based on the Icelandic model from Monday to Thursday, working 9 hours per day, which equals 36 hours per week.
Team members were 100% in favour of skipping Fridays in order to have a long weekend every week. 🙂
The colleagues were given regular working hours, sacrificing the flexible working hours they were used to before: they were required to work actively from 9am to 4pm. In order for the company to be able to carry out its activities on a 4-day working schedule, it was crucial that colleagues responded as quickly as possible to each other's requests/requests.
The reduction in working hours has not been accompanied by a reduction in wages.

Frequently asked questions, or our challenges:

How were you able to reschedule the meetings?

This was one of our most serious challenges, but it also gave us a good opportunity to review our business processes and streamline where necessary. The most striking example of this was the restructuring of meetings to ensure that they were of the right quality and quantity.

The fundamental problem was that if all meetings had remained in the new system, this would have led to an increase in the proportion of meetings (compared to working time). The time had therefore come to eliminate pointless meetings, introduce a time limit for meetings (the stand-up meeting format greatly facilitated this), and assign a person responsible for each meeting to prepare, moderate during the meeting and then follow up. This sounds simple in theory, but the practical implementation is far from it.

How do you manage holidays?

This was one of the biggest puzzles for us. Finally, by mutual agreement with the staff, we reduced the basic leave to 16 days from the original 20 days, because instead of 5 days, we only have to work 4. And here's a twist: if the company introduces a 36-hour working week, an extra condition has to be introduced: one day off is now equivalent to 9 working hours. This is particularly important to clarify in workplaces where working hours are somewhat flexible.

But what about national holidays if they fall on a weekday, Christmas, 20 August, etc.?

This issue should be examined at the beginning of each year and the necessary compromise should be reached. Proportionality requires consideration of the following:

if a public holiday falls on the working day that has been abandoned (in our case, Friday), people working a 4-day working week "lose" a public holiday compared to people working a normal working week,
if a public holiday falls on a working day (in our case, Monday to Thursday), people working a 4-day working week "win" compared to people working a normal working week, as they get 9 hours of rest instead of 8.

At Alias, at the beginning of the year, we quickly sum up the public holidays for the whole year and find a compromise solution, i.e. how many hours a colleague gains or loses with a 4-day working week compared to a normal working week. We simply impose compulsory holidays if an adjustment is necessary. Fortunately, so far it has always been a win-win situation! 🙂

What are the legal consequences of the introduction?

If the system is implemented, employment contracts may need to be amended, as it is important to clarify whether reduced working hours will lead to reduced wages and how overtime will be accounted for. If a climate of trust has been established within the company and communication between staff is good, we recommend that management should not try to come up with pre-fixed contracts for the trial period, as the changeover may not be permanent and the parameters need to be fine-tuned. For example, the management of holidays is absolutely not evident at first and we have been stumbling to reach a compromise. If there is an internal time monitoring system in place, the reduced working hours will be easily measurable (if not, feel free to contact us, we can make a suggestion!) and transparent for the management.

The other legal issue that needs to be clarified and is very important from an employment law perspective is the accounting of pensions. The 36-hour working week is considered a full-time employment relationship in the Hungarian legal system, so it provides a full pension fund, and workers' rights are not affected.

Is there no customer service on Fridays?

We would never, ever let our customers down - there's no question of cutting back on customer service. Most industries, including software development, require some form of customer support system (IT support to many), whether it's over the phone or online. Taking a step back, we have always made it a priority to ensure that our customers receive excellent, user-friendly and trouble-free software, so we are in the fortunate position of having very few operational emergencies to deal with. But of course we are also ready to deal with any hiccups on Fridays, the burden of which has been taken on by project management for the time being.

And on public holidays, our developers rotate 'on-call time', in which they play the role of firefighters (but we'll knock it off: we're good now, we haven't had a Christmas job since 2021 😀)

Read our next article to find out how successful the four-day working week at Alias was!