Why the Five-Day Workweek No Longer Makes Sense

New research shows that working fewer days can actually improve productivity, well-being, and business results—if it’s done right.

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Chances are, you work five days a week: Monday through Friday. And you probably don’t think much about it—because that’s just how work works, right? But who decided that five days was the right number in the first place? As it turns out, the modern workweek wasn’t thoughtfully designed for focus, creativity, or even productivity. It was inherited from the Industrial Age, built for factory floors and time clocks, not knowledge workers and digital tools. So maybe it’s time for a rethink. In Do More in Four: Why It’s Time for a Shorter Workweek, researcher and work redesign strategist Joe O’Connor and journalist Jared Lindzon make the case that working less can actually help us do better work. Here are five of their key insights.

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1. There is no good reason for the workweek to be five days long.

It isn’t backed by science, ancient wisdom, or divine decree. Nobody sat down to conduct an objective analysis of the optimal number of days for humanity to work and rest, and determined that the current 5-2 split was right, fair, or necessary. Our conventional workweek was instead shaped by a period of rapid economic and technological change that concluded over 100 years ago, during the Industrial Revolution.

For 95 percent of human history, we worked an average of 15 hours per week, and that work was typically fluid, flexible, and quintessentially human. Then the early industrial era changed both our relationship with work and the kinds of skills needed to thrive. In the early industrial era, there were no evenings or weekends; those who showed up were paid for the hours they worked, and those who didn’t were replaced.

That was until the early 19th century, when Christian groups successfully lobbied the American government to close the post office on Sundays so that workers could attend church, and gradually other employers followed. Jewish workers were instead given Saturdays off to accommodate their sabbath, but that didn’t sit right with the Christian groups, who insisted on having both days off for all workers. That is ultimately how we arrived at our current workweek, but it wasn’t even codified into the American Fair Labor Standards Act until 1940, well after the 40-hour standard was adopted by most major employers.

While that standard served us well for the last 85 years, work has changed dramatically in that time. As we undergo another period of rapid disruption, we are once again in a unique position to reimagine work in ways that better suit today’s realities and tomorrow’s opportunities.

2. Using industrial-era metrics in the digital age is proving unsustainable.

Since the Industrial Revolution, we have been calculating productivity in hours, which is a useful tool for measuring output on an assembly line—not so much in a knowledge economy. There are many ways to fill an hour at work, but not all contribute equally to the business’s bottom line.

Quantifying productivity is no longer as simple as counting hours. It has become a much more complex, holistic equation that includes hard work as well as the quality of rest and recovery, time off, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and much more. There is a strong argument to be made that there is now a greater correlation between worker well-being and productivity than there is between hours worked and productivity.

In a fast-approaching reality in which digital labor, in the form of agentic AI, can infinitely scale a repeatable process, racing against the machine will be a dead end for the human workforce. Productivity will be all about digital efficiency plus human effectiveness.

These increasingly valuable capabilities rely heavily on leveraging wellbeing, motivation, energy, and recovery. Like our pre-industrial ancestors, work is evolving to leverage our most human skills. Those abilities can be optimized through a four-day workweek, in which, instead of seeking to do more in less time, we use AI to do fewer, high-impact tasks better.

3. A four-day workweek only works under the right circumstances.

You can’t just march into the office on Monday, announce a four-day workweek, and expect workers to magically fill the gap.

Much like the transition to hybrid or remote work, the switch to a four-day workweek must be thoughtfully designed and implemented. It requires strategy, discipline, and a willingness to challenge everything you thought you knew about productivity.

Rather than an extra weekly vacation day, the four-day workweek should be leveraged as a powerful incentive to rally staff members to completely overhaul their work processes and adopt new technologies to accomplish more in less time.

Such changes are often difficult to implement on their own; if you ask your staff to be 20 percent more productive, they probably won’t respond positively. If, however, you tell them they can work one less day each week if they can find ways to be 20 percent more productive, they will likely be more than happy to take on the often difficult but potentially game-changing tech adoption and work redesign efforts that can help them achieve it.

The four-day workweek is about using time as a shared reward for better performance, engaging your staff on a collective mission to reduce hours without compromising outcomes.

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4. The four-day workweek can address specific organizational challenges.

Organizations that adopt a four-day workweek typically use it to address significant challenges related to employee well-being, recruitment, or tech adoption. Many organizations have leveraged it to address each in a way that would be difficult or impossible otherwise.

For example, we offer case studies featuring a non-profit organization and a family law firm that both struggled with high absenteeism and burnout due to the intense nature of the work. Both ultimately found that any cost of moving to a four-day workweek, which they reported as minimal, was more than offset by sharp reductions in turnover and absenteeism.

We also share the stories of mid-size tech firms struggling to compete with industry giants offering salaries they could never match. Rather than trying to win the recruiting game on the same terms, they decided to change the game by offering a perk that none of their competitors would. As one firm told us, the difference between an A player and a B player is much greater than the 20 percent in lost time. Another also shared how the simple practice of auditing how staff spend their time at work revealed a disconnect between what employees thought mattered to the business and what actually improved its bottom line. Having a roster of all-stars, all squarely focused on the metrics the business cares about most, has enabled each to be more successful in four days than they were in five previously.

The four-day workweek can also be an effective way to rally staff around internal projects that they might otherwise resist. Research shows that many employees are actively sabotaging their organization’s attempts to adopt new AI tools out of fear of being replaced by them. If an employee’s only reward for learning new skills and adopting new ways of doing things is more work, less job security, or the opportunity to earn more money for shareholders, they’re probably not going to make that transition easy for the company. In the book, we share the stories of an American architectural firm, a British environmental consultancy, and the New Zealand office of global consumer goods behemoth Unilever, each of which used the four-day workweek to motivate major operational improvements by letting staff share in the rewards.

5. The four-day workweek can help address some of our greatest societal challenges.

The four-day workweek can offer measurable environmental benefits by taking more cars off the roads and more workers out of office towers during the week, and by encouraging more sustainable behaviors. In Joe’s four-day workweek pilots, participants reported recycling more, volunteering more, and spending more time in nature. They also suggested that the four-day workweek gave them time to engage in more sustainable habits, like cooking instead of ordering takeout, or biking instead of driving.

The four-day workweek is also being looked at seriously by jurisdictions around the world to help address declining birth rates. According to pilot studies, the four-day workweek not only makes it easier for women to balance their careers and home lives but also encourages men to chip in more, while saving on childcare costs and allowing families to spend more time together.

Perhaps the greatest impact, however, is in the workplace itself. By including caregivers and non-caregivers under the same companywide policy, those with greater responsibilities at home—typically working mothers—were more likely to be seen as equal contributors and considered for advancement opportunities, rather than feeling singled out for needing a shorter schedule.

While the four-day workweek can’t solve all of society’s challenges, it provides an opportunity to make meaningful progress in a way that gives people something of value, rather than a personal sacrifice.

The shift to a five-day workweek began as a grassroots movement long before it was signed into law, and we believe the same will be true for the four-day workweek.

Although ongoing political efforts from the United States to the UK to Korea help bring attention and credibility to the four-day workweek, change is most likely to originate in academic papers, picket lines, break room chats, and Slack channels long before the conversation is brought into the boardroom and even longer before it reaches the legislative floor.

When it comes to setting a new standard for working hours, history has shown that leaders, business owners, and employees have more power to drive lasting change than politicians. The future of the workweek isn’t up to them; it’s up to you.