First published July 6, 2021.
Between 2015 and 2019, Iceland ran two large public-sector trials in which more than 2,500 workers, over 1% of the country's working population, cut their week from 40 hours to 35 or 36 with no loss of pay. When the results were analysed and published in 2021, researchers reported that productivity and service levels stayed the same or improved in most workplaces, while stress and burnout fell. Despite the headlines, most participants did not move to a four-day week: they worked slightly shorter days or took occasional extra time off.
Here is who ran the trials, what changed, what the numbers do and do not show, and what other countries and companies have learned since.
Who ran the trials and who took part
The first trial was launched by Reykjavík City Council in 2015. The national government followed with its own trial a few years later. Together they covered a wide range of public workplaces: offices, social service providers, preschools and hospitals, including teams that work shifts and provide round-the-clock care.
The results were analysed in a report titled Going Public: Iceland's Journey to a Shorter Working Week, written by Guðmundur D. Haraldsson of the Icelandic Association for Sustainability and Democracy (Alda) and Jack Kellam of the UK think tank Autonomy, and published in July 2021.
What actually changed: hours, not days
The trials are widely described as "four-day week" trials, but that label is misleading. A true four-day week would remove around eight hours. In Iceland, most workplaces trimmed up to three or four hours from a 40-hour week, reaching 35 or 36 hours.
Teams were encouraged to redesign how they worked rather than squeeze the same routines into less time. Typical changes included shorter or fewer meetings, replacing some meetings with emails, reorganising shifts, and cutting unnecessary tasks. Some staff left earlier on certain days, while others took a half-day or a full day off every so often.
What the researchers found
According to the Autonomy and Alda analysis:
- Productivity and service provision remained the same or improved in the majority of trial workplaces.
- Worker wellbeing rose across several measures, including perceived stress, burnout, health and work-life balance.
- Costs stayed neutral for the city council and the government, according to the report.
Workers said they had more time for family, household tasks, exercise and hobbies. Autonomy's director of research, Will Stronge, called the trials "by all measures an overwhelming success" when the report came out, and that phrase became the headline around the world. Haraldsson, for his part, argued the trials showed that working less in modern times is possible.
The 86% figure explained
The most quoted statistic from the report is that 86% of Iceland's workforce has since moved to shorter hours or gained the right to do so. This figure is easy to misread.
It comes from collective agreements that unions negotiated between 2019 and 2021, partly inspired by the trials. Those agreements gave workers the right to request or negotiate shorter hours. They do not mean 86% of Icelanders already work 35- or 36-hour weeks. In many cases, the reductions agreed in later contracts were small, sometimes an hour a week or less.
Caveats and criticism
The Iceland trials are genuinely encouraging, but a fair reading includes some limits.
- The analysts are advocates. Autonomy campaigns for shorter working weeks, and language such as "overwhelming success" is its own characterisation. That does not make the findings wrong, but readers should weigh it.
- The reductions were modest. Cutting three or four hours is very different from removing a whole day, so the results cannot simply be applied to four-day-week policies.
- Public services only. The trials covered public-sector workplaces. Businesses facing different pressures, such as manufacturing or retail, may see different outcomes.
- Measurement varies. Productivity in hospitals or preschools is hard to measure precisely, and many outcomes relied on staff surveys.
Other shorter-week experiments around the world
Iceland was one of several high-profile experiments. In New Zealand, the trust company Perpetual Guardian ran a six-week trial in 2018 in which more than 240 staff each took one day off a week on full pay. University researchers who tracked it reported better work-life balance and lower stress, with productivity holding up, and the company made the schedule permanent. Some staff reported more pressure to meet deadlines.
Around the time the Iceland report appeared, Unilever announced a trial for its New Zealand staff in which employees could cut their hours by 20% without a pay cut, and Spain's government agreed to support a pilot of a shorter working week for companies.
The largest follow-up came in the United Kingdom. From June to December 2022, about 61 companies with roughly 2,900 employees took part in a four-day-week pilot run by Autonomy, academics from Cambridge, Oxford and Boston College, and the 4 Day Week campaign. Most participating firms chose to continue afterwards, and reported fewer staff leaving.
Some campaigners also argue for environmental benefits. In 2021, the London group Platform published a report arguing that shorter working hours could reduce the UK's carbon footprint, though that remains a projection rather than a measured result.
Lessons for employers and workers
The clearest lesson from Iceland is that cutting hours works best when the work itself is redesigned. Simply compressing an unchanged workload into fewer hours risks more stress, not less. Workplaces considering a shorter week usually do better when they:
- review meetings, reporting and approval steps before cutting hours;
- plan cover for services that must run every day, such as care or customer support;
- agree how output and wellbeing will be measured before the trial starts;
- involve staff and unions in designing the new schedule;
- run a time-limited pilot and adjust before making changes permanent.
Iceland showed that modestly shorter hours can be compatible with good public services and healthier workers. Whether a full four-day week can do the same everywhere is a question other trials are still answering.
Sources: Autonomy: Going Public, Iceland's journey to a shorter working week; Alda: Going Public; Wikipedia: Four-day week; story first reported by BBC News.
COMMENTS