The four-day workweek has been gaining momentum around the world in the last year. A majority of employers who’ve tried the schedule, predominantly in Europe, plan to continue to pay employees for 40 hours for 32 hours of work. The decision comes after they tested the waters with a six-month pilot program organized by researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College.

In Canada, an overwhelming majority—91 percent—of 1,449 senior managers surveyed by Robert Half favored some type of four-day workweek, although 45 percent favored a four-day week with employees working longer, 10-hour shifts.

But is a four-day, 32-hour workweek feasible in the U.S.?

“If you asked me three years ago, I would say it was a passing trend, but I think COVID has changed the lens [on] how we work,” said Julie Voges, SHRM-SCP, regional managing director of HR at Atlanta-based OneDigital, an insurance, financial services and HR consulting firm. “This is just an iteration of how we work. I think it’s inevitable. I think management needs to get its head around it. I think COVID has helped move the needle.”

U.S.-based organizations with global footprints will need to adapt to remain competitive and have alignment between domestic and internationally based employees, she said. There’s also the matter of the employer proposition, which has changed, she pointed out.

“Employees have the cards to play … they’re demanding more paid time off, they want the hybrid, they want the remote [options]. … Employers have to be really creative in the total rewards package,” she said. Very few people, she added, wouldn’t be enticed by getting paid 40 hours for 32 hours of work.

Employers also are cognizant that the birth rate decline and the number of Baby Boomers leaving the workforce are creating hiring challenges.

“All those things together are creating the perfect storm,” she said.

Job candidates already can find LinkedIn postings for U.S. employers offering four-day workweeks. Two six-month global pilot programs in 2022—primarily in the U.S. and Ireland—have been “a resounding success,” according to one report.

Movement in the States

Almost 60 school districts across Texas are switching to four-day school weeks, with some of those districts approving the change for the 2023-24 school year, including one district that serves almost 6,500 students. The strategy aims to prevent teacher burnout, help with recruiting and improve student attendance rates.

There have been similar efforts at the state level. In February, Maryland lawmakers proposed a bill setting up a five-year pilot program that would give a state income tax credit to employers that moved at least 30 employees from a five-day to a four-day workweek without reducing pay or benefits. However, that bill was pulled in March; sponsors plan to seek a state labor department study.

California legislators introduced a bill in February 2022 that would create a 32-hour workweek for employers with 500 or more employees; it died in committee. The Society for Human Resource Management opposed the legislation and called it a “one-size-fits-all approach” that would create a “significant logistical burden for HR professionals, especially at companies with operations in multiple states.”

Federal Action

Voges thinks if the four-day workweek concept takes hold on the coasts, “there’s going to be a trickle-down effect, and it’s going to … happen quickly.”

The federal government has to play a leading role, she said, as it did 85 years ago when Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938, limiting the workweek to 44 hours. Two years later, it amended the FLSA to create today’s 40-hour workweek.

Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., reintroduced his 32-hour Workweek Act to Congress this year. If passed, it would reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours.

Private Employers’ Options

There’s nothing stopping employers from implementing a four-day workweek, pointed out Peter Cappelli, the George W. Taylor professor of management at The Wharton School and director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania.

“As far as I can tell, employers have no interest in a 32-hour week,” he said. “At least as presented and proposed in legislation, it means paying employees for a full week—40 hours for hourly-paid—but only having to work 32 hours, and for hourly employees, they [would] receive overtime pay after 32 hours rather than 40 at present.”

Some organizations—and workers—are skeptical about the so-called advantages to a shortened workweek, The Wall Street Journal reported, with some workers wondering how they would be able to manage workloads and customer and client needs while putting in fewer hours. What they don’t want, The Wall Street Journal noted, were 10-hour shifts over four days.

Many manufacturers moved to a four-day workweek prior to the pandemic—but with 10-hour shifts, noted Isidro “Izzy” Galicia, president and CEO of Incito Consulting Group in San Francisco. The ideal way to deploy this model, he said, is with overlapping schedules—some teams working Monday to Thursday 10-hour shifts while others work Tuesday to Friday.

“While I believe it is absolutely feasible to deploy a four-day workweek in which employees are paid for 40 hours but work 32,” Galicia said, “a manufacturing environment provides an extra layer of complexity that may not be the same as in a service and transactional environment. In manufacturing, production targets are established based on customer demand and must be met over a certain period of time.

“If an [eight-hour] shift is removed from the equation, you then have 32 fewer hours per month to meet production goals. When this happens, many manufacturing organizations find themselves overburdening the workforce, which is in direct contrast to employee well-being.”