Four-day week
A four-day week is a working pattern where full-time employees work four days instead of five, usually for the same pay. Trialed across hundreds of European companies since 2022; results mixed but the candidate-attraction effect is consistent.
The two distinct models
“Four-day week” is overloaded — distinguish:
- 32-hour week, same pay: most common in published European trials. Employee works 32 hours across 4 days for the same salary as the 40-hour-week peer.
- Compressed 40-hour week: employee works 4 × 10 hours instead of 5 × 8. Same hours, different schedule.
In hiring, the first is a benefit; the second is a schedule preference. Confusing them in the job posting is a common candidate-experience failure.
What the European data shows
The 100 Companies (UK, 2022-23), 4 Day Week Global Foundation (Iceland, Belgium, multiple EU pilots) consistently find:
- Retention up by 20-30%.
- Application volume up when 32-hour weeks are advertised — sometimes 2-3x.
- Output broadly maintained in knowledge-work roles; in customer-facing roles results are more variable.
- Quality of hire: harder to measure cleanly, but no studies show degradation.
The mechanism for the volume effect: candidates see “32-hour week” in the posting and self-select toward it.
What it doesn’t fix
A four-day week doesn’t fix bad management, broken processes, or compensation below market. Companies adopting it for retention reasons sometimes find that the underlying retention problems were not about hours.