28 American and Canadian companies are implementing a test pilot program of a four-day workweek for its employees.

Video Transcript

DAVE BRIGGS: 28 companies in the United States and Canada are testing out the four-day work week. It will be part of a six-month pilot program in partnership with Four-Day Week Global. Now 70 companies in the UK are about halfway through the same trial. And so far, a majority of those businesses say productivity is actually the same or has actually improved. This is a very interesting experiment now really gone global.

And Rachelle, my assumption was always four-day workweek can work if it's for 10-hour workdays. So you're eventually working a 40-hour work anyway. Most of these companies are, in fact, instituting four eight-hour days, so they're working 32 hours, but still getting 100% of the pay. I don't get it. No, I frankly think you've got to find a way to hit that 40-hour workweek, but apparently, the study suggests otherwise.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Well, it was actually saying that most people in the pilot are actually working 80% of their previous hours for that same pay. So you're still getting the same paycheck for 80% of the hours. But I mean, some are doing it less aggressively. Some are saying, look, we'll have maybe a half day on a Friday. Some are doing the 10 hours for the four days as well.

What I thought was interesting, though, they said one of the companies who participated called Atom Bank, when they moved to a four-day workweek model, the salaries remained unchanged, but there was a 500% uptick in the job applications for open roles. So I know a lot of companies have been trying to find that sort of happy place between, do we do hybrid, do we bring in more work from home, do we try a four-day workweek.

But if this is what it takes in, like, a tight labor market to actually get people interested in applying for some of these jobs, whether they'll stay after that six-month period after they go back to full-time, I don't know. But at least this does seem to be incentivizing maybe some people who were stuck on the sidelines.