New study shows how a four-day work week gets more done in less time

The traditional 40-hour work week made the most sense during the manufacturing-heavy early 20th century, but it feels awfully outdated in today’s digital and service-driven economy. Older generations seemed to accept burnout, chronic stress, and a fractured work-life balance as the “cost of doing business.” Some still often brag proudly about it—but is the Monday-through-Friday grind something we all have to accept?

The folks in the “Land Down Under” say nope. A new study conducted among 15 Australian companies that instituted a four-day working week is challenging the commonly accepted status quo. Published in Nature’s Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, the research tracked a variety of firms as they adopted the “100:80:100” model at their places of business: employees receive 100% of their pay for 80% of the time, provided they maintain 100% of their baseline productivity.

The data showed that the model not only worked, but it was successful across a wide swath of industries, proving that you don’t have to compromise the quality of your workforce’s output when reducing hours. Even more encouraging, the four-day work week trial showed tangible improvements in employees’ well-being, too.

Reclaiming your time, one ‘this could have been an e-mail’ at a time

The most common question you hear when talking about the four-day work week is, “How am I going to cram 40 hours’ worth of tasks and responsibilities into a 32-hour bag?” What this new research shows is that this equation doesn’t actually add up. People are pretty adaptable, and the companies that participated found that, rather than lengthening individual workdays, their employees focused on making their time in the office more effective.

Teams audited their weekly schedules, got rid of low-value tasks, minimized workplace distractions, and deleted the bane of any office: redundant and bloated meetings. Even better, of the 15 companies tracked, none recorded a loss in productivity, and more than a third reported that productivity actually increased. Turns out, when workers get their time back, they treat their remaining working hours with greater respect and sharper focus.

Having a work-life balance without tipping over

From a business perspective, productivity and output are the metrics that get the C-suite all hot and bothered, but the study also showed equally encouraging results for employees’ work-life balance. In the normal workweek grind, a person’s Saturdays and Sundays are often swallowed up by “standard life maintenance.” These are things like grocery shopping, mowing the lawn, and endless loads of laundry. So, when people get back to the office on Monday, they arrive already exhausted from their “time off.”

The study showed that adding a third day off disrupted this cycle, and workers found more ways to inject what they wanted to do into what they needed to get done. The resulting data revealed a massive 64% reduction in employee burnout and a 38% decrease in overall stress levels. This emotional improvement directly correlated to physical improvement, too, as participants were able to exercise more and for longer periods, and even slept better.

When family time means business

As workers’ physical and mental health improved with the extra day off, so did things on the home front. The study observed remarkable shifts in the domestic load: husbands and fathers suddenly had more time to help with daily housework and childcare duties, which took the onus off working mothers.

This one-two punch reduced work obligations and family-life conflicts by nearly 50% among those surveyed. Parents were able to genuinely engage with their kids, care for their aging relatives, and connect more with their friends and communities without constantly wondering “what’s happening at work?” Their employers directly benefited, too, with a 44% drop in sick and personal days and a noticeable decrease in staff turnover.

Will your workplace be the next to adopt the 100:80:100 formula? Time will tell, but the results of this Australian trial show that work-life balance improves when both sides coexist constructively rather than competitively. In short, a healthier society and a thriving economy are not mutually exclusive. Just make sure that when you bring it up with you boss, you do so in an email, not a meeting.

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