60 UK companies to hold four-day workweek trials

Sixty UK companies will conduct a six-month trial of a four-day working week to help firms shorten their working hours without cutting salaries or sacrificing revenues.

Such trials have been conducted in Spain, Iceland, the United States, and Canada and are scheduled to take place in Australia and New Zealand in August.

According to Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, program manager of 4 Day Week Global, the campaign organization behind the trial, it will provide businesses more time to work through difficulties, experiment with new processes, and collect data.

According to Pang, smaller firms should find it simpler to adapt since they can make large changes more easily.

Pressure Drop, which is situated in Tottenham Hale, hopes that the trial will boost not just their employees' productivity but also their well-being.

It will also help to lessen their carbon footprint.

Another trial participant, the Royal Society of Biology, says it wants to give staff "greater authority over their time and working routines."

Both expect that a shortened workweek would help them retain personnel at a time when UK firms are facing significant labor shortages and a record 1.3 million job openings.

Unilever was able to experiment with a shortened workweek for its 81 workers in New Zealand since there is no production at the Auckland office and all employees work in sales or marketing.

The service industry is vital to the UK economy, accounting for 80 percent of the country's GDP.

However, it is more difficult in industries like retail, food & beverage, healthcare, and education.

The most difficult task will be determining how to quantify productivity, especially in an economy where most of the labor is qualitative rather than quantitative.