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Working only four days instead of five, but with the same pay. It may sound like a beautiful dream for many employees, but it could soon become a reality thanks to the ever-increasing digitalization and the constant evolution of artificial intelligence. Technology tools and automation could enable workers to manage their workload and to carry out their tasks more quickly and efficiently. Time-consuming repetitive or mindless routine tasks could be automated thanks to AI, freeing up employees and saving them time. Despite reduced working hours, employees are still just as productive as before and achieve the same work performance, which is why the standard four-day week is becoming closer than ever.

There was a time when productivity and the hard work of employees were measured in hours. For many workers (in traditionally office-based roles), calculating working hours is no longer as simple as clocking in and out. The internet, mobile devices and the introduction of hybrid, home, and elective workplaces have changed the workplace, allowing people to perform their duties wherever and whenever they need or want to.

One of the downsides of these new freedoms is the potential loss of a balanced work and home life, or the blurring of the lines between the two. To address this, one initiative that has gained momentum in recent years is the introduction of the four-day week - the idea being to encourage people to work smarter, not harder.

Advocates of this approach argue that the principle of a reduced four-day week improves work/life balance, reduces stress, and boosts efficiency, while critics worry about business continuity and potential productivity challenges. The success of a four-day week regime, therefore, relies on productivity levels being maintained or preferably increased – a benefit which can also help to address labor shortages, while workers also gain a better balance between their work and life.

Many companies and governments have tested the concept, with trials showing positive results in employee well-being and retention.

Evolution of the working week

If you look at the
average working week in the EU today, it is 37.5 hours. But it wasn't always like this. According to
Huberman (see adjacent graphic), working hours in industrialized countries decreased drastically in the last century from 1870 to 2000, even if there were variations in between. In the Netherlands, for example, employees worked 3,285 hours per year in 1870, but only 1,347 hours in 2000. Also, in other countries such as Germany and France, working hours have been drastically reduced.

In addition to social and political factors such as improvements in working conditions due to labor movements including trade unions, and the evolution of government legislation to cap working hours and enforce minimum standards for employee welfare, technological progress could also have contributed to this - with economies transitioning from manual labor industries to many new knowledge-based technology industries, which feature greater automation and may require less manual work.

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Source:
International Labour Office

One of the pioneers of shorter and more regulated working hours was Henry Ford, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, when he introduced 8-hour shifts for his employees in
1914, followed by a 5-day and 40-hour workweek schedule
in 1926, which is still common for many companies today.

To ensure equal and fair working conditions for all employees throughout the EU and to protect their health, the EU also stipulated in its
Working Time Directive in 2003 that employees cannot work more than an average of 48 hours per week, including overtime.

Promising pilot projects for a four-day week

Since then, there have been repeated attempts to introduce shorter working hours or even a four-day week. According to the
World Population Review, more than two dozen countries are running test and pilot programs to explore the possibility of a four-day week, and a handful of countries have officially introduced the possibility of a permanent four-day week. Many four-day workweek pilot programs are targeting the 100-80-100 model: 100% pay, 80% hours, and 100% productivity. Early data on the four-day week is proving promising in many cases, as shortening the average work week helps citizens in both hard-working and particularly overworked countries improve their work/life balance, stress levels, and overall satisfaction.

For example, 2,500 employees took part in trials in
Iceland between 2015 and 2019. They switched from a 40-hour week to a 35- or 36-hour week without any loss of pay. The results of the studies showed that productivity did not suffer, and in some cases even improved. Researchers described the results as groundbreaking, with evidence supporting the effectiveness of reducing working hours. The findings revealed that a shorter workweek led to better employee well-being, with improvements in stress levels, burnout, overall health, and work/life balance.

As part of a trial run of the four-day week in the
UK in 2022, over 60 companies from different industries reduced their working hours in various ways – through a coordinated additional day off, staggered days off, or a 32-hour week over the year for companies with seasonal needs – without any loss of pay. The results were promising. Employees' stress levels decreased, and most found it easier to balance work and care. There are also benefits for the companies: Retention of talented employees improved with a 57% reduction in turnover (something which is also important when there are shortages of skilled labor available), and turnover increased by an average of 1.4%.

Since 2019, the non-profit organization
4 Day Week Global has been guiding businesses from all over the world through a 6-month trial period of operating within a four-day work week. It reports an average 25% increase in company turnover, a 32% decrease in employee resignations, and 66% report a reduction in burnout. In 2024, 4 Day Week Global conducted a study with
45 German companies and 6,300 employees who implemented the four-day week on a trial basis. The participants reported a significant improvement in mental health and a better work/life balance. Employee satisfaction also improved, which contributed to better recruitment and retention rates in the companies. At the same time, the companies observed stable or even increased productivity despite the reduced working hours.

A concrete example of this is the Fintech company Bolt. After a three-month trial where
employees had Fridays off, the company introduced the four-day week on a permanent basis. Bolt achieved high scores in the areas of morale, productivity, staff retention, and recruitment. 87% of managers said their team was able to maintain productivity and service levels in 20% less time.

How AI and Automation can help manage a move to the Four-Day Week

AI advancement is accelerating, and AI systems seem to be an obvious way of increasing productivity through automation, giving employees valuable time gains that could pave the way to the four-day week.

AI excels at automating mundane and repetitive tasks - examples include:

  • Data Entry and Processing: Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) uses AI to extract and process data from documents, or automate tasks like data cleaning, and extraction from various sources, including unstructured data like images and printed documents, all while reducing manual input errors. Konica Minolta offers its
    Document Navigator     and
    Waidok     solutions, which use ICR to improve recognition and extraction of information from documents without relying on templates.
  • Document Investigation and Editing: AI is perfect for quickly and accurately investigating documents. For example, you can use it for writing summaries (a short description of what the document is about), which is available from Konica Minolta on a
    M-Files    ,
    Document Navigator    ,
    Microsoft 365’s Copilot    , and
    Waidok    . You can also ask questions about a document for better understanding of its content, which is available when using M-Files, Waidok, and Microsoft 365’s Copilot. AI can also be used to recognize and obscure personal data in documents (such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, and other sensitive data) and is available in M-Files and Konica Minolta's Document Navigator. Using AI for automated and highly accurate Document Translation is another highly useful function that is available from Document Navigator, Microsoft 365’s Copilot, and Konica Minolta's
    Workplace Pure    . Additionally, Document Key Point Generation uses AI to compile lists of the most relevant topics of the document and is a feature of Microsoft 365’s Copilot and in Waidok.
  • Scheduling, Tasks, and Calendar Management: AI assistants can schedule meetings, send reminders, and optimize calendar management. For example,
    Microsoft 365’s Copilot     can schedule tasks and appointments using AI. It can also help to prioritize tasks and track progress to help you manage your daily and weekly tasks more efficiently.
  • Email Management: AI-powered tools can sort, prioritize, and even draft responses to emails.
    Microsoft Power Automate    , for example, can be used to create and automate any type of process, such as automatically responding to emails with a specific subject or attachment. An example could be automatic emails in response to job applications.
  • Customer Support: AI-based Chatbots and virtual assistants can handle routine customer inquiries, such as FAQs or order tracking. An example of this is
    Power Platform Copilot Studio    , which includes Microsoft's AI tool, Copilot, to help you create engaging websites. With this tool, you can also integrate AI-powered chatbots that answer queries. These chatbots improve through machine learning, refining their responses over time. If needed, the chatbot forwards customers to live agents, resulting in faster response times and better service quality.
  • Data Analysis: AI can help to analyze complex business data (such as sales trends, operational efficiencies, etc) and rapidly provide insights even on live data, more accurately than a human analyst.
    Konica Minolta’s Business Transparency Suite     eliminates the need to manually collect and analyze data in Excel spreadsheets. It leverages AI to provide insights into key business metrics and offers three services:
    Insights BI    ,
    ESG AI    , and
    Sales AI    . Insights BI delivers in pre-built dashboards with key business metrics like sales, costs, and stock levels. The ESG AI service uses AI to collect data such as CO2 figures, waste generation, energy consumption and much more from various sources to help you compile ESG reports. Sales AI is an AI-powered forecasting tool that provides quick and accurate predictions for sales, demand, and customer churn by leveraging intelligent automation to analyze customer behavior and group customers based on purchasing patterns.
  • Marketing Automation: AI tools can personalize email campaigns, schedule social media posts, and analyze campaign performance metrics.
  • Process supervision: AI and intelligent video systems, such as
    Konica Minolta’s Visual Inspection Quality solutions    , can also be used to monitor manufacturing processes or in logistics to check quality, spot errors, or detect damage before goods are shipped. These systems can also predict machinery issues for predictive maintenance, all of which save on the time of human operators and engineers.
  • Inventory Management: AI systems can track stock levels, predict demand, and automate reordering processes, improving supply chain efficiency. This could also be useful for customer order management.

By automating repetitive tasks and improving efficiency, AI allows workers to be more productive and generate time savings, potentially reducing the need for a traditional five-day schedule and helping to address labor market shortages. By taking this productive approach to a Four-Day week, workers have the opportunity to find a better work/life balance without sacrificing their salary, increasing job satisfaction, and increasing their loyalty to an employer that treats them fairly. As well as loyal employees, this is a great incentive for new employees to join the business, which is vital for companies looking to find the right talent in a highly competitive recruitment market.

As an expert technology provider, Konica Minolta offers a number of options that can help your business embrace greater automation safely and productively to meet the needs of the Four-Day Week approach, flexible working, and addressing evolving employee expectations.

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