More companies are trying out the 4-day workweek. But it might not be for everyone

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With the pandemic and the 'Great Resignation' making it harder for companies to attract and retain talent, a growing number of white-collar employers are exploring new avenues to make work life more appealing.

LaDonna Speiser has been working four days a week since February. She says she's not ready to give it up.

LaDonna Speiser is pictured outside of her company, Healthwise, on June 29. The Idaho-based company experimented with four-day workweeks last year and made it permanent in February.For Healthwise, cutting back to four work days was actually"Our revenues went up this year more than we had budgeted," says CEO Adam Husney."We've delivered on products on time or ahead of where we have done. I would say the things we are able to measure have all been positive.

. have enrolled in a trial this year. Companies in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand are also involved.Juliet Schor, an economist and sociology professor, sits for a portrait at her office at Boston College on June 27, 2022."If you look at the companies that are pioneering the four-day week, tech is very much at the forefront," says Schor. Kickstarter, with roughly 100 employees, is a notable company in the trial.

"What these experiments showed is that the nurses getting the six hour days, as we would expect ... were happier," says Schor."But the care facilities had to hire people for those extra hours. And what they found was although there was a small increase in costs, a lot of those additional salaries were offset by lower health care costs and lower unemployment for their existing workforce.

David Lewis, CEO of the human resources consulting firm OperationsInc, says the post-COVID-19 workplace has already made it difficult for employees to unplug. Similarly, for Lindsay Tjepkema, the CEO of a marketing technology company called Casted, Fridays off is an exciting bumper sticker of an idea but it doesn't necessarily make her employees' lives any better.Casted CEO and cofounder, Lindsay Tjepkema leads a senior leadership meeting at the Casted office building in Indianapolis on June 29.

 

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