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Less than three years ago the 4 Day Week – a productivity-focused, reduced-hours model of work – emerged in New Zealand as the brainchild of founder, innovator and entrepreneur Andrew Barnes. The story of Barnes’s experiment in his own 240-person company made headlines in 70+ countries and led to the establishment of 4 Day Week Global; a multi-country tour; collaboration with academics, policymakers and fellow business leaders; and a book explaining the benefits of the model and how other organisations can follow suit.

Now, Spain is set to apply the 4 Day Week’s flexible work model to address the challenges faced by all developed nations in the COVID era – how to maintain employment rates, stem economic fallout and solve humanity’s most grievous and urgent threat: climate change. This news coincides with multinational consumer goods company Unilever announcing a 12-month trial of the 4 Day Week in its New Zealand office, with potential to roll the model out to 165,000 workers globally.

In New Zealand, Mr Barnes says, “We’ve had the Wellbeing Budget, but when is this Government going to match rhetoric with action? We are falling behind. It’s disappointing to hear these supportive statements from the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance but then see no practical follow-up to support business and workers.

“The 4 Day Week is radical but rational, and it is what the New Zealand economy needs if we are to, as political leaders around the world like to say, build back better.”

Mr Barnes and 4 Day Week Global are the only Kiwi signatories in an international coalition of political, trade union and business leaders that has now written to global leaders to demand that European countries adopt a 4 Day Week to help their economies recover from the pandemic. Recipients of the coalition’s letter include UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez – and Spain’s left-wing government has taken the lead, with the finance ministry looking at proposals for a 2021 productivity-centric pilot programme to give financial aid to companies that cut the work week to 32 hours, with no loss of pay to workers.

But it was New Zealand that had a head start on a productivity-focused flexible work model – the 4 Day Week concept was born in New Zealand in 2018 with a trial at Perpetual Guardian – with productivity, profitability and employee wellbeing and work-life balance results that were so astounding, the concept took off internationally.

As Mr Barnes says, “It was our ingenuity in New Zealand that gave birth to the 4 Day Week as a productivity-focused model of work that seeks to reduce employees’ working hours while improving their wellbeing, quality of life and family time, and maintaining companies’ profitability.”

4 Day Week Global CEO Charlotte Lockhart says she and Mr Barnes have been working with and advising the likes of Unilever and other multinational companies for many months on how they can trial and potentially adopt the 4 Day Week and accrue its benefits. “We congratulate Unilever New Zealand on its initiative and leadership. They have planned and set up their trial to get the best out of it, from productivity to employee wellbeing to organisational cohesion. It’s particularly impressive that Unilever recognises the advantages of doing this during an economic rebuilding phase.”

Mr Barnes says now is the time for the New Zealand Government to act. “Even as New Zealand took the lead in shaping the future of work in 2018 and 2019, Europe is now ahead of the pack with our initiative. Specifically, in Spain it is a small left-wing party, Más País, which has proposed the pilot plan, budgeted to cost about 50 million euros.

“Our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has spoken positively, as has Finance Minister Grant Robertson, about the flexibility afforded by how New Zealand employers and employees have adapted to COVID and the proven productivity benefits of working from home, and the Prime Minister has encouraged employers to think about how they might offer a 4 Day Week.

“But New Zealand instigated the modern discussion about the future of work, and created the model to support it that is now likely to be adopted in Spain, Ireland and elsewhere – so why have we lost our leadership position in the most critical time for our economy and climate?

“European leaders correctly see the 4 Day Week as a tool for post-COVID economic recovery. We are in a new world where all the issues the New Zealand Government has talked about – from gender equality and the pay gap to mental health, climate change, the repositioning of New Zealand in the digital economy, and solving issues of structural unemployment – are directly addressed by the 4 Day Week. This model is economically rational and environmentally sound.

“Now we need more than talk. Business leaders have been broadly enthusiastic about the 4 Day Week in dozens of countries, but we cannot reap the full economic and social benefits of it without legislative change of the kind Spain is proposing. When, in momentous points in history, we have embraced the future of work – with the eight-hour day, the five-day week – it has been with legislative change led by governments that see the road ahead, often with a push from labour organisers.”

Fact Sheet

  • The coalition’s letter argues that a 4 Day Week would help deal with the economic fallout caused by COVID-19: ‘for the advancement of civilisation and the good society, now is the moment to seize the opportunity and move towards shorter working hours with no loss of pay.’
  • Perpetual Guardian sparked global media fascination with its flexible work model after is successfully trialled (in early 2018) and then permanently implemented (in November 2018) the four-day week, resulting in a 25 per cent lift in employee productivity, a 27 per cent reduction in work stress levels, and a 45 per cent increase in employee work-life balance. Importantly, company profitability rose too: overall profitability rose during the trial period, and company revenue and profitability have since increased by 6 per cent and 12.5 per cent respectively.

The 4 Day Week: How the Flexible Work Revolution Can Increase Productivity, Profitability and Wellbeing, and Create a Sustainable Future by Andrew Barnes with Stephanie Jones was published globally in early 2020 by Piatkus, part of Little, Brown Group;