KarunaNews Story

Companies exploring the option of letting employees work four days a week hope to reduce job burnout, retain talent, and seek a better work-life balance, says Dale Whelehan, CEO of 4 Day Week Global, which coaches companies in shortening employees’ work hours. Eight percent of full-time employees polled by Gallup in 2022 said they work four days a week, up from 5% in 2020. In August, Japan launched a campaign encouraging employers to trim work schedules to four days. “There’s a lot of evidence to suggest we need to do something fundamentally different in the way we work,” Whelehan says. “The fundamental change we see is, let’s move away from thinking about productivity as how much time it takes to get something done, versus focusing on what outcomes we know drive businesses forward.”