After Testing Four-Day Week, Companies Say They Don’t Want to Stop
试行四天工作制后，这些企业还想继续
Firms saw productivity hold mostly steady and fewer employees quit
参与研究的企业发现，其生产率基本未受影响，而员工离职率和缺勤率都降低了。
Vanessa Fuhrmans
瓦内萨·弗尔曼斯
Want to try a four-day workweek? Put this on the boss’s desk.
想试试一周只上四天班？把这篇文章放到老板的桌上吧。
A large majority of U.K. companies participating in a test of a four-day workweek said they would stick with it after logging sharp drops in worker turnover and absenteeism while largely maintaining productivity during the six-month study.
参加四天工作制试验的绝大多数英国企业表示，他们会继续实行这一方案，之前，在这项为期六个月的研究中，员工流失率和缺勤率均大幅下降，而生产率基本未受影响。
In one of the largest trials of a four-day week to date, 61 British businesses ranging from banks to fast-food restaurants to marketing agencies gave their 2,900 workers a paid day off a week to see whether they could get just as much done while working less, but more effectively. More than 90% said they would continue testing the shorter week, while 18 planned to make it permanent, according to a new report from the study’s organizers.
这是迄今为止规模最大的四天工作制试验之一，参加试验的61家英国企业涵盖了银行、快餐厅、营销机构等行业，它们为2,900名员工提供了每周一天的带薪假期，看看他们是否可以在工作时间减少的情况下，以更高的效率完成同样的工作量。根据该项目组织方发布的一份新报告，九成以上的参与企业表示，它们将继续试行四天工作制，有18家企业打算把这一制度固定下来。
The idea of working less than the conventional 40 hours over five days a week has been discussed for decades. The concept has gained new momentum recently as employers and employees seek new and better ways to work. The Covid-19 era ushered in broader acceptance of remote and hybrid work arrangements. Now, some employers, as well as policy makers, are exploring whether a shorter workweek can improve employee well-being and loyalty.
数十年来，人们一直在讨论能否改变传统工作制，不必每周上五天班、工作40个小时。随着雇主和员工都在寻找更好的新型工作方式，最近，这一理念的势头更猛了。新冠疫情时代开始让越来越多的人接受远程办公与混合办公模式。如今，无论是雇主还是政策制定者，都在探讨一个问题：减少每周工作天数能否提升员工的幸福感与忠诚度。
“At the beginning, this was about pandemic burnout for a lot of employers. Now it’s more of a retention and recruitment issue for many of them,” said Juliet Schor, an economist and sociologist at Boston College. Her team helped conduct the study with the nonprofit advocacy group 4 Day Week Global; U.K.-based think tank Autonomy, which focuses on issues including the future of work and climate change; and researchers at Cambridge University.
“起初，对许多雇主来说，这只是为了缓解疫情带来的职场倦怠。如今对很多企业而言，这已更多地成为一个涉及员工留存率与招聘的问题。”波士顿学院（Boston College）经济学家及社会学家朱丽叶·肖尔（Juliet Schor）说。她的团队参与了上述研究，参与研究的还有非营利宣传机构4 Day Week Global、关注职场未来和气候变化等问题的英国智库Autonomy，以及剑桥大学（Cambridge University）的研究人员。
Global tests
一花引来百花开
Companies in the U.S. and Canada recently concluded a smaller pilot of a four-day week led by the U.K. study organizers, and similar trials are in the works in Australia, Brazil and elsewhere. Consumer-goods company Unilever PLC recently tested the concept in its New Zealand offices, while Spain’s government plans to pay companies to experiment with a four-day week. In a study in Iceland involving more than 2,500 employees across industries, researchers found most workers maintained or improved their productivity and reported reduced stress.
近日，在英国项目组织方的指引下，美国和加拿大的企业开展了小规模的四天工作制试验，澳大利亚、巴西和其他国家也进行了类似尝试。消费品生产企业联合利华（Unilever PLC）最近在其新西兰办公室试行了此类工作模式，西班牙政府则计划出钱让企业试行四天工作制。在冰岛开展的一项涉及2,500余名员工、横跨多个行业的研究中，研究人员发现，大多数员工都能保持甚至提高生产率，他们感受到的压力也变小了。
Widespread adoption faces a number of obstacles. Most companies that have experimented with a four-day week are small employers. Many larger companies haven’t embraced the concept. And at some companies trying four-day weeks, some workers have reported struggling to get everything done in that time.
然而，要想普及这种模式，仍面临着诸多障碍。已试行四天工作制的大多是一些规模较小的雇主。许多较大的企业还未接受这一理念。此外，在一些试行四天工作制的企业中，有些员工汇报称，他们难以在四天时间里完成所有工作。
In the U.K. study, which ran from June through November, most employees didn’t work more intensively, researchers say. Rather, they and their bosses sought to make work days more efficient with hacks such as cutting back on meetings and ensuring employees had more time to focus on completing tasks.
研究人员指出，去年6月至11月在英国开展的研究中，大部分员工的工作强度都没有增加。相反，他们和老板会利用一些妙招来提高工作日期间的干活效率，例如减少会议，以及确保员工有更多时间去专心完成任务。
On a scale of 0 (very negative) to 10 (very positive), employers on average scored their productivity and performance over the six months at 7.5. A survey conducted halfway through the trial found 46% of companies said their business productivity had remained about the same, while 34% reported a slight improvement and 15% a significant improvement.
按照从0-10的标准（0分最低，10分最高），雇主对他们过去六个月中的生产率和绩效打出了7.5分的平均分。一项在试验进行到一半时所做的调查显示，46%的企业称，他们的生产率与从前大致相当，34%的企业表示略有提高，另有15%的企业表示有显著提高。
Meanwhile, 39% of employees said they were less stressed than before the pilot program started; about half reported no change. Nearly half observed improvement in mental health, and 37% also noted an improvement in physical health.
与此同时，39%的员工说，与试验项目开始前相比，他们的压力变小了；约50%的员工表示，他们感受到的压力较以往没有变化。近一半的人注意到，他们在心理健康方面有了改善，37%的人感觉到自己的身体比以前更健康了。
Zapping meetings
少开会，多做事
Claire Daniels, chief executive of Trio Media, a 13-employee digital-marketing agency based in Leeds, England, said she joined the trial to see whether a more effectively structured week could improve her business’s productivity. Before starting, she and her staff tracked and analyzed their workweek and concluded 20% of it was wasted in unessential meetings, business travel and other inefficiencies.
Trio Media是英格兰利兹（Leeds）一家拥有13名员工的数字营销机构，其首席执行官克莱尔·丹尼尔斯（Claire Daniels）说，她之所以参加这项试验，是想看看如果把一周当中的工作时间安排得更加有效，是否会提升企业生产率。正式开始前，她和员工追踪并分析了以往工作日期间的各种安排，进而得出结论：其中20%的时间都浪费在了不必要的会议、商务差旅以及其他效率低下的事情上。
“So immediately, we knew we weren’t having to cram extra work in the four days,” she said.
“所以我们马上就明白，四个工作日里，我们并不是要做更多才行。”她说。
Staggering everyone on Monday-Thursday and Tuesday-Friday schedules – with each employee having a partner to cover the day they were off – Ms. Daniels said she and her staff stopped holding marathon daily team meetings. And in longer meetings involving clients and multiple presentations, employees would drop in for portions and leave again, depending on how necessary their attendance was.
按照周一到周四或是周二到周五的排班，把员工错开安排，同时为每名员工挑选一位队友，以便在他们休息那天可以临时顶替他们，丹尼尔斯说，这种模式下，她和员工们不再像以往那样，每天都要召开马拉松似的团队会议。如果是有客户参加且涉及多项展示内容的耗时较长的会议，员工可以在会议进行到与自己有关的部分加入，然后再离开，这取决于他们到场的必要性有多大。
The hardest part, she said, was for staff to make sure they didn’t slip back into old work mind-sets or habits. On the whole, productivity was the same, or slightly improved, and revenue rose 47% compared with the year-earlier period, she said.
丹尼尔斯谈到，最难的一点是要确保员工不再回到以往的工作心态或习惯。她说，总体而言，生产率并没有变化，或者说略有提高，公司收入较上年同期增长了47%。
Ms. Daniels said she wants to continue the trial another six months before making a permanent change, “but I don’t see us going back to a typical five-days-a-week model.”
丹尼尔斯说，在做出永久性改变之前，她想再试验六个月，“但我觉得我们不会再回到每周上五天班的传统模式了。”
