New Zealand Firm's Four-Day Week an 'Unmitigated Success' (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The New Zealand company behind a landmark trial of a four-day working week has concluded it an unmitigated success, with 78% of employees feeling they were able to successfully manage their work-life balance, an increase of 24 percentage points. Two-hundred-and-forty staff at Perpetual Guardian, a company which manages trusts, wills and estate planning, trialled a four-day working week over March and April, working four, eight-hour days but getting paid for five. Jarrod Haar, professor of human resource management at Auckland University of Technology, found job and life satisfaction increased on all levels across the home and work front, with employees performing better in their jobs and enjoying them more than before the experiment. Work-life balance, which reflected how well respondents felt they could successfully manage their work and non-work roles, increased by 24%. In November last year just over half (54%) of staff felt they could effectively balance their work and home commitments, while after the trial this number jumped to 78%. Staff stress levels decreased by 7 percentage points across the board as a result of the trial, while stimulation, commitment and a sense of empowerment at work all improved significantly, with overall life satisfaction increasing by 5 percentage points.

Comments

Lazy Kiwis

[Anonymous Coward]

Get back to work! Those sheep won't shag themselves!

Face Palm

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, next we should try a three-day week. Then imagine how much better a two-day week will be! When we get to zero, the work-life balance will be perfect!

This is America

[Anonymous Coward]

In America, we do not strive to have a better life. We feel that at as long as we work as close to death as possible without actually dying, that is just good enough. Politicians should never, ever, tell a corporation what to do or how to treat their employees, since the employees should just be grateful they have a job in the first place.

This mentality is why America is the greatest country on earth. Our hard work has resulted in a strong government, powerful military, world-class health care, an education system second to none, the best infrastructure anyone has ever seen, and with everyone working so hard crime is at an all time low.

I mean really, what relevant data point does America NOT excel in relative to any other country?

Re:This is America

[azcoyote]

We feel that at as long as we work as close to death as possible without actually dying, that is just good enough.

Yep, that pretty well describes my American lifestyle. I'm pretty amazed how much I can physically, intellectually, and emotionally drain myself without ever managing to die.

Re:Missed Most Important Metrics

[DontBeAMoran]

If you want to find a way to improve employee well-being while running a sustainable successful business, then you need to real metrics for success.

That will never work in the U.S.A., though. They don't use metric.