The largest experiment with a four-day work week in Iceland was recognized as a success

Iceland has summed up the results of the largest tests of a shortened working week and recognized them as successful. Labor productivity did not decrease, and in some cases even increased.

The experiment was conducted among civil servants from different fields from 2015 to 2019. It was attended by more than 2.5 thousand people (more than 1% of the entire workforce in Iceland). Participants were temporarily transferred from a 40-hour work week to a 35 or 36-hour work week without a pay cut. In addition to those working according to the traditional schedule from 9 am to 5 pm, employees with a non-standard schedule took part in the tests.

Productivity and labor productivity either remained at the same level or increased in most of the tested enterprises. Employees improved in a number of ways, including stress and burnout, health, and work-life balance.

About 86% of Iceland's workforce is now either already working fewer hours or has been given the right to reduce them, the authors of the study note. They hope the findings could come in handy for future trials of the four-day work week around the world.

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Russia has been talking about a four-day working week for several years now. In June 2019, Dmitry Medvedev unexpectedly called it possible for Russians to switch to a four-day work week, and since then the issue has come up regularly. What is behind this, we told here , and is it possible to introduce a four-day work week without harming business - here .