Cambridge, England — A current trial of four-day workweeks at a municipal authorities workplace in England shows that 22 of the 24 key efficiency indicators tracked improved or remained the identical.
Researchers on the University of Cambridge and the University of Salford studied the consequences of a four-day workweek schedule on the South Cambridgeshire Council. Workers’ pay wasn’t decreased through the 15-month trial.
Eleven of the KPIs confirmed enhancements, together with:
- Percentage of calls to the council’s Contact Center answered.
- The proportion of complaints responded to inside a prescribed time interval.
- The proportion of emergency repairs to council properties accomplished inside 24 hours.
- Major planning utility choices made in time.
- Smaller planning utility choices made in time.
- Invoices paid by the council inside 30 days.
“These results are supportive of moves to reduce the length of the working week but are not a surprise,” Brendan Burchell, a sociology professor at Cambridge, stated in a press launch. “In the past two years, other researchers have studied many private sector employers in the UK and elsewhere that also reported the company’s performance was maintained after a 20% reduction in hours of work; employees and managers can find better ways of doing things to work more efficiently, given the right guidance and motivation.”
