Interest in the four-day work week has transitioned from being an outlier workplace trial to becoming an actively debated topic among researchers and policymakers. In this paper, I will evaluate the results of the major trials performed thus far, including the public sector pilot trials of Iceland (2015-2019), the world's biggest national trial in the United Kingdom (2022), the international trial known as 4 Day Week Global, and corporate trials at Microsoft Japan and Perpetual Guardian, assessing how reducing work hours affects employee productivity and wellbeing [1,2,3,4,5]. Using the framework of the Job Demands-Resources theory to explain these effects, this paper aims to show that the reduction of work hours can potentially have a positive effect on wellbeing and productivity in a scenario of workload redesign rather than just a reduction of hours [7,17,18]. It will also examine in what conditions the four-day work week may prove to be ineffective, specifically in industries with continuous coverage needs. Based on the review of the evidence so far, it can be concluded that even though the evidence gathered in the experiments thus far is consistently positive, methodological restrictions require viewing this phenomenon as a promising yet conditional approach.
Batra, V. (2026). The Impact of a 4-Day Work Week on Employee Productivity and Mental Health. International Journal of Innovations & Research Analysis, 06(02(II)), 171–177. https://doi.org/10.62823/IJIRA/6.2(II).9182
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