Episode 059 - The Four-Day Week: What the Largest Trial Ever Actually Found

The largest-ever four-day workweek trial, involving 2,896 employees, 141 companies, and six countries, found the opposite of what researchers expected. People didn't work faster and burn out. Burnout fell, satisfaction rose, and nothing changed in the control group (Fan et al., 2025, Nature Human Behaviour). But there's a catch: "four-day week" covers two very different policies, and a 2025 systematic review found that the wrong one can just as easily increase sickness absence (Bernstrøm et al., 2025). The benefit isn't the day off. It's who controls the recovery time (Mullens & Laurijssen, 2024, BMC Public Health).

Bernstrøm, V. H., Alves, D. E., Houkes, I., Lillebråten, A., & Nilsen, W. (2025). The consequences of a compressed workweek: A systematic literature review. International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-025-02153-8

Fan, W., Schor, J. B., Kelly, O., & Gu, G. (2025). Work time reduction via a 4-day workweek finds improvements in workers' well-being. Nature Human Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02259-6

Mullens, F., & Laurijssen, I. (2024). An organizational working time reduction and its impact on three domains of mental well-being of employees: A panel study. BMC Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19161-x

Hosted by Dr Austin Tay, Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol, FBPsS), ICF PCC executive coach and founder of OmniPsi Consulting.

Thoughts on this one? Email psychchat@omnipsi.com or find Austin on X, @psych_chat. New here? Subscribe.