The promise of a four-day week? A critical appraisal of a management-led initiative
Helen Delaney and Catherine Casey examined a management-led trial of a four-day week, introduced to raise productivity and worker wellbeing, through a qualitative case study of a medium-sized financial services company in New Zealand. They report that the four-day week was popular with employees and brought individual benefits, but that performance measurement, monitoring and productivity pressure intensified, and that the collective, pro-social interests seen in labour-led campaigns for shorter hours were absent. The authors urge closer scrutiny of business-case initiatives for reduced hours, and note that most earlier research looked at the macro level rather than inside firms.
Helen Delaney and Catherine Casey examined a management-led trial of a four-day week, introduced to raise productivity and worker wellbeing, through a qualitative case study of a medium-sized financial services company in New Zealand. They report that the four-day week was popular with employees and brought individual benefits, but that performance measurement, monitoring and productivity pressure intensified, and that the collective, pro-social interests seen in labour-led campaigns for shorter hours were absent. The authors urge closer scrutiny of business-case initiatives for reduced hours, and note that most earlier research looked at the macro level rather than inside firms.
Written from the abstract read 2026-10-27 via the Emerald record.
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Delaney, H., & Casey, C. (2022). The promise of a four-day week? A critical appraisal of a management-led initiative. Employee Relations, 44(1), 176-190. doi:10.1108/ER-02-2021-0056 https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-02-2021-0056