Rethink Work

Changing how we think about work

Working hours

There are currently 45 articles in this category    RSS

  • faviconThe Four-Day Week research from the Henley Business School — Too good to be true? Not according to this research. Surveying 500 businesses and 2000 employees, the report explores the benefits of working fewer days to both organisations and workers [2023]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week, Research   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: Various    

  • faviconWork less, pollute less — Reducing working hours would give people more spare time, lead to a fairer distribution of labour and wealth, and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. But this bold vision is too frightening for some [2021]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: FR   
    Source: Various    

  • faviconFree days for future? Longitudinal effects of working time reductions on individual well-being and environmental behaviour — participants reported increased well-being, more intent-related pro-environmental behaviour, less car commuting, and decreased clothing expenditures [2022]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week, Research   
    Comments   
    Source: ScienceDirect    

  • faviconAmericans Work Hundreds of Hours More a Year Than Europeans — In developing countries, workers are putting in these long hours because wages are low and they’re trying to make ends meet, the report says
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: Research   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Various    

  • faviconNo more Fridays — The results of the 6 months trial shift to a 4-day workweek in 2022 were overwhelmingly positive: companies in the program reported increased revenue and improved employee health and well-being, and had a positive impact on the environment [2023]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: Business Insider    

  • faviconAmerica is facing a spiritual crisis. More leisure time is the cure — We haven’t made meaningful adjustments to the workweek in the 85 years since, and a reckoning is long overdue [2023]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week, Leisure   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: MSNBC    

  • faviconFour Days a Week: This Labor Day, Let’s Talk About Laboring Less — Keynes speculated that people would still want to work, but perhaps only 15 hours a week. Then the rest of the time, each human would have to figure out “how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well” [2023]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: The Intercept    

  • faviconIceland’s shorter working week has been a huge success — contrary to fears that productivity and the provision of services would suffer, nothing could be further from the truth. Extensive research has shown that they have remained the same or even improved [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: IS   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconHow San Juan, a cash-strapped US county found success with a 32-hour workweek; employees have used their extra time off to spend less money on childcare, volunteer in their kids’ schools, and contribute to the community [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: CNN    

  • faviconIndependent analysis of the South Cambridgeshire District Council’s four-day week trial shows that it was a clear success; higher employee commitment and reduced turnover, better mental & physical health and motivation, all while it continued to deliver the same quality of services [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week, Research   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: Various    

  • faviconGreece’s forced six-day workweek exploits workers and will leave the economy worse off in the long run. The policy, pushed by market fundamentalists and driven by economic pressures, and an aging population, serves as a cautionary tale for global labor. Workers in other nations should take this as a lesson and preemptively refuse to follow suit [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: Productivism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: GR   
    Source: Jacobin    

  • faviconThe 32-Hour Work Week is Not a Radical Idea – While CEOs are making nearly 350 times as much as their average employees, workers throughout the country are seeing their family life fall apart as they are forced to spend more and more time at work [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: How to be Human, Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: CounterPunch    

  • faviconGermany trials the four-day workweek: “Free time is invaluable”– Over 30 German companies began trialing the four-day workweek for six months with over 1,000 employees taking part. The initiative has been led by the NGO 4 Day Week Global and the HR consultancy firm Intraprenör in partnership with the University of Münster [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: DE   
    Source: Welcome to the Jungle    

  • faviconRemembrance of Work Time Standards Lost – Mainstream economists have completely blown the issue of working time; we should call the bluff of the textbook-thumping experts who seem to think that a toxic cocktail of overwork and underemployment is “good for the economy” [2001]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Straight Goods    

  • faviconFour-day week campaign to launch UK pilot – The latest trial will also look at other flexible working policies, including a shorter working week, flexible start and finish times, a nine-day fortnight or compressed hours, when people work the same number of hours but over fewer days [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconEveryone working less – with no reduction in pay – could be a solution to everything from Britain’s chronic productivity problems and the mental health pandemic to the broken care sector. It’s better for the planet, too: the overworked drive more, eat more processed food & buy more disposable items [2023]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week, Environment, Mental Health   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconThe vast majority of companies taking part in the world’s largest trial of a four-day week have opted to continue with the new working pattern, in a result hailed as evidence that it could work across the UK economy [2023]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconLargest UK public sector trial of four-day week sees huge benefits, research finds; staff turnover was cut by 39% and scores for employees’ physical and mental health, motivation and commitment all improved
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconUnited Auto Workers president Shawn Fain spoke before Congress in support of Bernie Sanders’s new 32-hour workweek bill: ‘We find associated deaths of despair, from addiction and suicide, of people who don’t feel a life of endless, hopeless work is a life worth living’ [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week, Deaths of Despair   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Jacobin    

  • faviconThe four-day work week is the future – The evidence is clear: a four-day work week would boost productivity and happiness. So why aren’t our politicians pushing for it? [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: New Statesman