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FUTURE OF WORK
New research shows that organizations adopting shorter workweeks are seeing positive results for both employees and themselves. Here's how companies are successfully implementing this change.
Juliet B. Schor, interviewed by MIT Sloan Management Review
Is the shift to a four-day workweek a real movement, a post-pandemic fad, or a pipe dream? In her new book, Four Days a Week: The Life-Changing Solution for Reducing Employee Stress, Improving Well-Being, and Working Smarter (Harper Business, June 2025), Juliet B. Schor, an economist and sociologist at Boston College, sheds light on the phenomenon. Since 2022, Schor and a team of researchers have been engaged in the largest study of the four-day workweek yet, examining 245 organizations and 8,700 employees across a range of industries, demographics, and national contexts. The book reveals their findings so far: that a four-day workweek proves to be a surprisingly viable model for many organizations, with broad benefits for both employees and employers. MIT Sloan Management Review spoke with Schor to better understand how these companies are making a shorter week work and why most are choosing to stick with it. This conversation has been edited for clarity.
MIT Sloan Management Review: It's been 85 years since the 40-hour, five-day workweek became standard in the U.S. Why do you think now is the moment for a shift to a four-day workweek?
Juliet Schor: There are a few key reasons. First, similar to the transition to the five-day workweek, what we're seeing now is an employer-driven movement, which makes it more likely to have momentum than if it were solely worker-driven.
Second is Al, because with technology that has the potential to displace so much labor, maintaining rigid work schedules doesn't make sense. It just makes it harder to maintain high employment levels as we see more Al-driven productivity growth.
The third piece is that so many workers are struggling. The phrase we heard from employees so much was, "Two days [off] is not enough." That's key to people's sense of not being in control of their lives or having sustainable schedules. Employers are responding to this because it's the right thing to do and it hurts the bottom line when people are stressed-out, disengaged, or quitting.
What are the main findings...