Tech companies are exploring four-day workweeks to improve employee wellbeing and retention without letting essential work fall behind. The model’s promise is not simply “the same workload in less time”: successful trials have involved cutting hours and redesigning how work gets done. Evidence so far is encouraging, but it does not show that every company or role can make the change without trade-offs.
What a four-day workweek actually means
In the UK pilot summarized by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), participating employers reduced working time by 20% for six months without reducing pay. That is different from squeezing the same weekly hours into four longer shifts. The latter changes the schedule, but not the amount of work time.
Organizations in the UK pilot used different arrangements, including a shared day off, staggered days off, or reductions distributed across the week. The choice affects both employee time off and the hours when the business can serve clients.
Why tech companies are interested
Reducing burnout and improving wellbeing
The most direct motivation is giving employees more time to recover while preserving pay. In the UK pilot, more than two-thirds of participants reported lower burnout; 39% said they felt less stressed, and 40% reported fewer sleep difficulties. UKRI also reports improvements in anxiety, fatigue, and mental and physical health. These are outcomes reported by participants in that trial, not guaranteed results for every workplace.
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Keeping people and attracting talent
Employers may also see a shorter week as a way to make jobs more sustainable. In the UK pilot, UKRI reported a 57% fall in staff leaving organizations during the trial, alongside a 65% reduction in sick days. Those figures describe the participating organizations during the pilot; they do not establish what a typical technology company should expect.
In technology-sector examples reported by ITPro, cloud-service provider Civo and marketing technology firm Awin connected wellbeing benefits with attracting or retaining talent. These are company accounts, not an industry-wide measurement of hiring outcomes.
Making time use more deliberate
Many technology teams can examine meetings, handoffs, and asynchronous work to find avoidable friction. UKRI says companies in the pilot used technology and shorter meetings to reduce working time without compromising productivity. That does not mean a particular tool automatically creates a shorter week: teams still have to decide what work matters, which tasks can be removed or simplified, and how responsibilities move between people.
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What the trials say—and what they do not
The UK pilot ran from June to December 2022 and involved 61 organizations that committed to reducing hours by 20% without reducing pay. UKRI’s 2024 summary reports these results:
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors| Outcome | Reported result | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Burnout | More than two-thirds of participants reported lower burnout | Participant-reported outcome in the UK pilot |
| Stress and sleep | 39% reported less stress; 40% reported fewer sleep difficulties | Participant-reported outcomes in the UK pilot |
| Sick days and staff departures | Sick days fell 65%; staff leaving fell 57% | Organization-level changes reported during the UK pilot |
| Revenue | Average revenue rose 1.4% among 23 organizations that supplied revenue data | Limited reporting sample; not a forecast for other employers |
| Continuation | 56 of 61 organizations were still operating a four-day week a year after the pilot | Continuation among the UK pilot organizations |
The revenue result is based on fewer than half of the participating organizations, so it should not be treated as evidence that reducing hours raises revenue generally. Likewise, lower absence or turnover in a trial does not guarantee the same result in a different company.
A broader 2025 peer-reviewed study in Nature Human Behaviour describes pre- and post-trial data from 2,896 employees in 141 organizations across Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. Its indexed abstract reports improvements in burnout, job satisfaction, mental health, and physical health that were not observed in 12 control companies. The study adds multi-country evidence, but those results still do not establish that every sector, employer, or job will respond identically. Read the study abstract.
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The evidence does not establish what share of technology companies currently use a four-day week. It supports interest in the model and reports outcomes from particular trials and company examples, not an industry-wide adoption rate.
Does a four-day workweek hurt productivity?
It can, if a company cuts scheduled hours but leaves the same meetings, workload, deadlines, and service expectations untouched. The trials and company examples instead point to work redesign: shorter meetings, better use of technology, and clearer ways to coordinate work.
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ITPro reports that Civo said its output stayed broadly the same while wellbeing and engagement improved. Awin reported the same or increased productivity and gave staff flexibility in arranging the shorter week. These statements illustrate how two companies describe their own experience; they are not controlled comparisons proving that the arrangement preserves output elsewhere.
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As Civo CEO and founder Mark Boost put it, “It’s not been a magic productivity fix for us – output has stayed broadly the same – but the gains in wellbeing and engagement have been enormous.” The practical lesson is to measure output and service quality rather than assume that fewer scheduled hours either automatically reduce productivity or automatically leave it unchanged.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How a company can design a workable four-day week
1. Be clear about the hours being changed
Set out whether the proposal reduces weekly hours or compresses them into four longer days. Those are materially different arrangements. If the objective is a reduced-hours week, define the normal hours, pay treatment, and expectations for availability so that staff are not quietly expected to complete a fifth day’s work off the clock.
2. Choose a schedule that protects coverage
A shared day off is straightforward when the business can close or pause some work. Staggered days off or team-specific schedules may better suit organizations that need to remain available throughout the week. Decide in advance who handles urgent client requests, how work is handed over, and what backup is available when someone is off.
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3. Redesign work before launch
Review recurring meetings, approval steps, handoffs, and low-value tasks. Shorter meetings and technology that reduces friction were approaches reported in the UK pilot, but the right changes depend on how each team works. A new calendar alone will not remove unnecessary work.
4. Check fit and fairness across roles
A schedule that works for one team may not suit another. Consider whether employees in different roles have comparable access to time off, whether coverage duties fall unevenly on particular people, and whether the arrangement fits staff needs. UKRI’s qualitative work examined fairness and inclusion as part of implementation.
5. Track outcomes and adjust
Use a defined pilot period and employee feedback to test the arrangement. Track output, service quality, wellbeing, absence, and retention rather than treating hours worked as a stand-in for performance. If service or workload suffers, identify the cause—such as a coverage gap or an unchanged workload—before deciding whether to revise the schedule or the work itself.
The trade-off behind the appeal
The striking reason companies are exploring the four-day week is that they hope to improve the employee experience and keep people while maintaining useful output through better work design. The evidence provides credible reasons to test that idea, including reported wellbeing and retention improvements. It is not a promise of automatic productivity gains, and it does not remove the need to design coverage, workload, and fair schedules around the actual roles involved.
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