The UK Will Try Out A 4-Day Workweek & So Many Companies Have Signed Up

While many global companies have been flirting with the idea of a four-day workweek for employees, several U.K. firms have actually signed up to make it a reality later this year.

Several different companies have agreed to give their employees one less workday per week, while continuing to pay them their full annual salary.

A company called 4 Day Week Global is spearheading the trial, with help from its U.K. branch, a think-tank called Autonomy and researchers at several universities such as Cambridge and Oxford as well as Boston College.

They're all working toward one common goal: to see if employees can maintain 100% of their productivity over just 80% of their time at the office over a period of six months.

The project is scheduled to run from June until December in the U.K., and if successful it could inspire many others to adopt the change permanently.

"The four-day week challenges the current model of work and helps companies move away from simply measuring how long people are “at work”, to a sharper focus on the output being produced. 2022 will be the year that heralds in this bold new future of work," Joe O'Connor, Pilot Program Manager for 4 Day Week Global, told CNBC earlier this month.

While this trial scheme is gearing up for a launch in the U.K., other similar trials are set to be carried out in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand.

Metro UK reported that in Spain and Scotland, trials of four-day workweeks are also in the works.

Other companies have already made the shift themselves, such as Atom Bank, which garnered media attention in November after reducing its hourly workweek to 34 hours with no reduction in pay for its 430 staff members.

The Sun released a list of other UK-based companies making the same move, as well as those in the U.S. — such as the e-commerce start-up, Bolt — who have already experimented with the idea of four days of work and three days of rest per week.

We're crossing our fingers that this'll catch on!