the attempt to reduce the working week to four days has been very successful and will be extended to other countries

In Iceland, an attempt has been made to reduce the working week to four days. The results – published on the UK portal Autonomy – were “a resounding success”, according to the researchers. Among the benefits, reduced stress, improvements in health and better performance at work were achieved

It is already causing a change in working methods in other countries. For example, the Icelandic Association for Sustainability and Democracy (Alda) has opened the discussion to implement the new program in the UK.

The experiment developed its “pilot” between 2015 and 2019 in Iceland, at the city hall of the capital Reykjavik, and concerned 2,500 people (more than 1% of the country’s working population), to whom the week was reduced to working at 35 or 36 hours -without reduction in salary-.

Office workers, school personnel, hospital and social service employees constitute the universe of workers studied.

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Conclusions of the reduction of the working week to four days

As the results indicated, workers demonstrated reduced stress, improved health, and even increased job performance in almost all groups.

Will Stronge, research director at Autonomy, said that “this study shows that the world’s largest experiment in reducing working time in the public sector has been, by all accounts, a resounding success.”

“This shows that the public sector is ready to be a pioneer in reducing work weeks and that other governments can learn from it.”

Gudmundur D. Haraldsson, researcher at Alda, stressed that “the reduction of the Icelandic week tells us that it is not only possible to work less in these times, but also that gradual change is possible”.

Indirect consequences

As a positive side effect, many men increased their participation in housework. On the other hand, productivity and the level of service delivery have remained the same or improved in most workplaces, as has the income reported by the state.

Since the end of the experiment, 86% of the Icelandic population have worked fewer hours or can apply for the new work model. In fact, Icelandic unions are already negotiating to reduce working time for the same pay and will soon have the right to do so.

Similar experiments are underway in other parts of the world, such as New Zealand – where the Unilever company in New Zealand gives its workers the opportunity to cut their hours by 20% without lowering their wages.

In Spain, the deputy Iñigo Errejón of the More Country party presented a similar project; and in Japan, companies were recommended to apply the same reduction to four days to overcome the pandemic crisis, reduce the suicide rate and improve the quality of life for residents.

#National The government analyzes having a 4-day work week https://t.co/Ozm9Yv2HdY pic.twitter.com/NwIgYmSh3T

– missionsonline.net (@misionesonline) March 31, 2021

Source: page 12

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