23
votes
From 2015 to 2019, Iceland ran the world's largest trial of a shorter working week – productivity either remained the same or increased, and wellbeing was considerably improved
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- Title
- Iceland ran the world's largest trial of a shorter work week. The results will (not) shock you.
- Published
- Jul 5 2021
- Word count
- 570 words
It's almost as if the 40-hour workweek was a minimum concession from the capital class to labor, and not an ideal amount long term.
Given the progress over the last 90 ish years, I'd say we could do with a solid 30% reduction in the workweek. Bring that unemployment back to 0. Imagine something like a 5x6 or 4x7 workweek.
I once had a load of holiday I needed to use but the studio I was working for then was extremely busy at the time, so I took every friday for 2.5 months instead and it was amazing. I was, if anything, slightly more productive and more importantly, my life was so much more pleasant. That one extra free day a week made so much difference to both relaxing and getting stuff done at home.
Can agree there. Back when I worked a sales assistant position in London, I decided to use my year's holiday allocation this way. The three day weekends were an unexplainable bliss to me at the time.
Unfortunately once my work colleagues saw how much I was enjoying the four day week, they all decided to book their holiday time accordingly. Paperchase decided this was not something that they wanted, so nipped it in the bud pretty promptly. Sigh.
The report can be found here.