Making the case for a four-day working week | ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize 2024

Despite advances in technology, many of us are still working approximately the same hours a week as people worked 100 years ago. As part of the world’s largest trial of a four-day working week to date, researchers investigated the impact of reduced hours on productivity and staff wellbeing. The insights into how and why companies might reduce working hours led employers to continue with the four-day week and are leading to other businesses and organisations to follow suit. The improving productivity and wellbeing with a four-day working week project, led by Professor Brendan Burchell (University of Cambridge) and Dr David Frayne (University of Salford), is shortlisted for the ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize 2024. The Prize, now in its 12th year, is an opportunity to recognise the success of ESRC-funded researchers in achieving and enabling outstanding economic or societal impact from their research.