- Some employers are testing four-day workweeks to reduce burnout without sacrificing productivity.
- Kickstarter is more than four months into a pilot and has logged its most productive quarter.
- There could be welcome implications for the planet if workers drive into the office one day less.
- This article is part of a series called "Culture of Innovation" exploring how companies are setting the stage for innovation, transformation, and growth.
Kickstarter is just four and a half months into testing a four-day workweek and already seeing results.
The crowdfunding platform in April started giving employees Fridays off while keeping salaries the same. Since then, it's been easier to hire and retain talent and Kickstarter had its most productive quarter to date, hitting every goal, said John Leland, head of strategy and sustainability.
It's not entirely surprising. A growing body of research from trials in Iceland, Japan, and the Philippines has shown that workers feel less burned out with compressed weeks and productivity tends to remain the same or even improve.
When Microsoft Japan tested the four-day workweek in August 2019, productivity spiked 40% compared with the same month in the prior year.
While the wellness benefits are important, that wasn't the main motivation for Leland, who proposed the four-day workweek pilot at Kickstarter. He saw it as a way to address the climate crisis and help employees make more sustainable decisions in their life outside work.
"Climate change can be really wonky and negative," Leland told Insider. "This was something positive we could do that would have a substantial impact on our carbon footprint."
Leland said he did his own back-of-the-envelope analysis of daily energy consumption and reviewed studies by AAA that found the US burns fewer fossil fuels and Americans drive fewer miles on weekends. Converting Friday to the weekend could yield major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, he said.
Fewer work hours also frees people up to spend more time in nature, with family and friends, resting, or participating in efforts to address the climate crisis or other civic challenges.
"We are seeing Kickstarter employees do all kinds of these things with their extra time," Leland said.
That theory will be tested as part of a pilot launched by the nonprofit 4 Day Week Global. Kickstarter is among some 200 companies in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand testing shorter workweeks across industries including banking, information technology, education, marketing, and retail. The nonprofit collects data on employee sentiment, company performance, and social and environmental impacts. Then 4 Day Week Global works with universities to study the results.
Some research has already linked fewer working hours to environmental benefits. Last year, 4 Day Week Global commissioned a study that found the shift could slash the UK's emissions by 127 metric tons by 2025 — the equivalent of the country's entire fleet of private cars.
Microsoft Japan found that the number of printed pages decreased by more than 58% and electricity use was down 23% in August 2019 compared with the same month a year earlier. A separate study of more than two dozen countries over nearly four decades found that working 10% fewer hours could reduce emissions by 4%.
"For some sectors that have already transitioned to remote or hybrid, the commuting and energy benefits might already be locked in, to some degree," Joe O'Connor, chief executive of 4 Day Week Global, told Insider. "But the other element we're looking at, which there is less data out there to support, is the question around individual behavior."
Companies participating in the 4 Day Week Global pilots are helping bolster the research by tracking commuting, energy use in buildings, and surveying employees about what they do with their newfound time away from the office.
O'Connor said people who work less intensely might make more sustainable choices around transportation or diet. The counterpoint is that if you give people time off with the same pay, they'll consume and travel more, with negative impacts on the planet. The nonprofit doesn't yet have sufficient data to draw final conclusions because trials are still underway.
"While there may be some unintended, knock-on negative consequences, we think in the round the impact will be positive," O'Connor said. "This will enable people to really engage with the climate discussion in their own lives and their communities, much more than would be the case if they're living a life which is really rushed."