Working eight hours a day, five days a week has been a standard organizational practice for full-time employees. However, companies are now considering alternative work arrangements, including four-day and six-day workweeks.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the four-day workweek for full-time employees tripled from 1973 to 2018, accounting for a more than 4% increase in workers with this truncated schedule. Some companies are going in the opposite direction by having full-time employees work six days a week.
ResumeBuilder.com collaborated with survey company Pollfish to conduct an online questionnaire of business leaders in April 2024, and the survey responses were eye-opening. What’s the rationale behind the shift to a longer workweek? What are the implications of a full-time, six-day-a-week schedule? Are there more benefits to having a shorter workweek?
Samsung Shifts to Mandatory 6-Day Work Week
Many companies employ full-time workers on a five-day workweek, while some operate on a four-day schedule. One major international electronics corporation is extending the work schedules of some of its employees.
Samsung recently required its executives to work a mandatory six days a week. This decision aims to improve the company’s finances by imparting a sense of necessity in the executives that they resolve by working more hours.
Differing Workplace Visions
ResumeBuilder.com asked the 753 business leaders if they would consider enacting a six-day working schedule. Overall, the respondents had differing visions of the future for their respective organizations.
Some of their ideas for the optimal workweek for their employees and the reasons behind those ideas are similar to Samsung’s. Other business leaders are advocating for shorter workweeks.
Changes for 2025
Of the business leaders surveyed, 9% will implement a six-day workweek starting in 2025. Most believe this schedule would enhance worker productivity and increase revenue.
Almost 17%, or 1 in 6, feel the workweek for full-time employees should be more than 40 hours. Not every employer shares this sentiment and has alternate ideas for 2025.
Four-Day Workweeks
The concept of a 32-hour workweek isn’t new. In March 2024, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) proposed a bill lowering full-time working hours from 40 to 32. This reduction in hours would be without a loss in pay or benefits. Twenty percent of business leaders in the survey favored a 32-hour workweek.
About 11% will enact a four-day workweek for employees in 2025, with 31% believing a four-day-week is optimal. 40% of survey participants believe a pay reduction for full-time workers with a 32-hour-a-week schedule is warranted. Only 3% feel full-time employees should work fewer than 32 hours a week.
Five-Day Workweeks
Most organizational leaders (79%) intend to keep their workers on a traditional five-day-a-week work schedule in 2025. 61% expect their workers to ideally maintain a five-day-week.
Unlike the business leaders in the survey, an overwhelming majority (81%) of workers prefer having a four-day-week. They’re willing to make significant sacrifices, like a longer commute and fewer vacation days, to have a shorter workweek.
Six-Day Workweeks
Of the business leaders surveyed, only 7% champion a six-day-week. Those employers feel a six-day work schedule will accomplish several goals, including having fewer staff members working long hours, enhanced production, and increased profitability.
When implementing a mandatory six-day work schedule, questions about the number of hours worked and pay come into play. The business leaders surveyed had varying ideas about the number of working hours in a six-day workweek.
Extended Hours?
A typical full-time employment schedule usually means working eight hours a day, five days a week. What does a mandatory six-day schedule mean by way of compensation?
Of employees working 48 hours over six days, 95% of business leaders advocate for extra pay for working those additional hours. If employees work 40 hours over six days, just 63% believe they deserve more pay.
40 or 48 Hours a Week
Employers’ responses to the number of hours their employees should work each week were mixed. 61% prefer a 40-hour-week, which is the traditional number of working hours.
12% of survey participants believe employees should work 48 hours a week, and only 4% feel they should work more than 48 hours a week.
Benefits and Downsides
Are there benefits to a six-day work schedule? 60% of those employers in the survey believe so. 62% think profits would increase, while more than half (51%) feel productivity would improve. Employees working six days a week would be expected to increase their availability to customers.
The downsides of an extended schedule include worker dissatisfaction, higher levels of burnout, and a reduction in work-life balance. Recruitment efforts could also suffer if a company requires employees to work six days a week.
Less Optimism
Employers understandably felt less optimistic about the effect of a six-day workweek on their employees. Only 39% predict morale would improve under an extended schedule.
Even fewer (37%) believe this would increase employee retention or comprise an ideal work-life balance. 36% feel employee mental health would get better, with only 28% believing burnout would also improve.
Microsoft Japan
Survey participants have opposing viewpoints on the four-day workweek. One major international corporation took the opposite approach to worker scheduling.
In 2019, Microsoft Japan implemented a four-day workweek as part of a pilot program. The company noticed a nearly 40% increase in productivity as a result of the shortened workweek. The program was such a success that Microsoft Japan made it permanent.
Benefits of the Four-Day Workweek
Since the global health crisis, employers have prioritized work-life balance. A shorter workweek with a three-day weekend is generally thought to lead to greater worker satisfaction.
81% of employers believe work-life balance would increase, with 80% saying employee morale and mental health would improve. 69% predict an improvement in worker retention would occur, along with 67% expecting an increase in productivity and 66% anticipating worker burnout. Less than half (49%) feel revenue would increase.
The Extended Outlook
Some employers may view a six-day workweek as beneficial to their company’s bottom line, but it’s a shortsighted decision that could backfire on them with the loss of workers and difficulty hiring new staff. Organizations globally are slowly but steadily embracing shortened workweeks, and workers are responding positively.
In 2023, a police department in Colorado transitioned to a four-day workweek with no changes in pay or benefits, and staffing levels remained unchanged. The six-day workweek may remain an outlier, while schedules prioritizing a work-life balance and employee satisfaction over productivity may upend the five-day workweek.
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