'Overwhelming success': Four-day workweek trial in Iceland displays great results

Trials of Iceland’s four-day workweek have produced “overwhelming success,” the researchers informed on July 5, Sunday. About 2500 workers participated in Iceland’s four-day workweek trial undertaken by the Association for Sustainable Democracy (Alda) along with UK-based establishment Autonomy in 2015-2019. Both the companies published their findings after two large-scale trials were carried out in the European country.

The participants in the study comprised roughly 1% of Iceland’s working population. They worked for 35-36hours per week with all the benefits and prevalent pay. The trials took place in a variety of workplaces which included corporations, hospitals, and various other management. The initiative was taken by Reykjavík City Council and the Icelandic national government as a reciprocation to numerous campaigns by trade unions and civil society organizations.

“Overwhelming results”

Workers who participated in the trial displayed a dramatic decrease in stress and burnout, Alda reported in its findings. Furthermore, productivity and service provision also showed an upward graph, or in some cases, remained constant across majority of workplaces. This is a lesson for several other economies to produce better output without overburdening their employees, said Autonomy director Will Stronge. According to Alda researcher Gudmundur D. Haraldsson, this study could be a “blueprint” to several such experiments in the future. He also added the shorter working-week journey is a ‘progressive change.’

Netizens react

Netizens praised the Icelandic four-day workweek trial and reiterated that other economies must also adopt this concept. One such comment came from Khaled Diab, author of ‘Intimate Enemies,' who wrote, "Its time for the whole world to move to this more humane approach to work." Others suggested that this should be implemented by employers and made effective immediately. 

‘Shorter workdays in other countries’

Meanwhile, several other countries have started exploring the idea of reduced working weeks. In 2017, Sweden began a six work-hours-a-day trial for two years. However, the country went back to 8 hours a day after the trials ended. Last year, Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern suggested that employers should consider a four-day workweek since it'll help to curb work-life balance issues. Similarly, Spain has planned to flag off a four-day trial to mitigate the challenges of automation.

(Inputs: Twitter)