Workers from various Australian companies participated in a new experiment that began in August in which they began working four-day weeks without seeing a reduction in pay.
It was confirmed to 7NEWS.com.au by a spokeswoman for the non-profit organisation 4 Day Week Global that the six-month pilot program, which will involve 20 enterprises from all over Australia and New Zealand, began at the beginning of August.
Even though they have only been going on for a few weeks, the spokesperson added that the Australian trials are “looking quite positive so far.”
The experiment is a continuation of previous studies that have been conducted in different parts of the world, such as the one that took place in the United Kingdom in June and involved thousands of workers at 70 different companies.
It includes companies from a wide variety of industries, including the fashion industry and the financial industry.
Workers who put in only 80% of their typical work week receive the same pay as those who put in the full week since they maintain the same production level.
To successfully carry out the program, 4 Day Week Global is working with researchers from the University of Auckland, the University of Queensland, the University of Sydney, and Boston College.
According to Andrew Barnes, the entrepreneur who invented the four-day week and went on to start 4 Day Week Global, the four-day week is not just about work-life balance and productivity. Instead, the four-day week is about a number of other things as well.
While the trial has come to an end in Ireland, similar pilot programmes are currently being carried out in both Canada and the United States.
Between the years of 2015 and 2019, Iceland carried out the most rigors pilots of a shorter work week. This experiment involved the participation of 2500 employees in the public sector in two major studies, which discovered that there was no decrease in employee productivity and substantial improvements in employee well-being.