Four days a week The life-changing solution for reducing employee stress, improving well-being, and working smarter

Bringing decades of work focused on addressing overly demanding work environments, Schor expands on her previous titles, including The Overworked American (1992). Pulling together collaborative research findings using data conveyed in an abundance of charts, graphs, and illuminating case studies, Schor provides a framework for successfully shifting to a four-day work week. She crafts a path forward using observations from the practical work of streamlining meetings to identifying work redundancies while considering complications, such as weeks with holidays. In today's labor climate, adopting strategies that provide for team stability, specifically retention and employee health, needs to be prioritized. The carefully crafted research here encompasses companies across a variety of industries, sizes, and global locations. Schor finds that employee retention increases, the number of sick days taken drops, and there is a reduction in the organizational carbon footprint based on reduced commute times. Changing workforce expectations and shifts in global industries are indicators of the need for the change outlined. Recommended for corporate and public library collections.

Schor (After the Gig), a sociology professor at Boston College, makes a strong case for a shorter work week in this vigorous report. Recounting the findings of her research into 245 organizations that implemented four-day work weeks without reducing pay, she notes that all 20 of the well-being metrics she tracked showed "statistically significant and often large improvements," including better mental health and reduced stress. Schor also surveys less intuitive findings, pointing out that 20% of men reported increasing their participation in household labor and that 37% of subjects said working less improved their physical health because they could spend more time cooking and exercising. Employers benefited just as much as employees, Schor claims, and she uses case studies to explore the two most common strategies for shortening the work week. For instance, she tells how the Toronto communications company Praxis maintained productivity levels while working fewer hours by slashing meetings, and how the Italian restaurant chain M'tucci's accepted a decrease in productivity because it was offset by cost savings from lower turnover. The robust research offers proof of concept across a range of organizations, and the case studies provide a shrewd road map of the different routes a company might take to a four-day work week. Employers looking to stand out in a tight labor market should start here. Agent: Melanie Jackson, Melanie Jackson Agency. (June)