Almost every company which took part in the recent four-day week pilot will continue with the practice with no loss of pay for staff.
A newly published report into the experiment, which has been released today by think tank Autonomy, University of Cambridge and Boston College in the US, said that, of the 61 participating companies, at least 56 were continuing with change. Eighteen of these have gone a step further and declared the policy is now permanent.
The vast majority said performance and productivity were maintained while employees reported lower levels of burnout and more time to manage childcare and other commitments.
Employers trialled a 32-hour week spread over four days and they were all allowed to design them to suit their own industries, organisational challenges, departmental structures and work culture.
Among the options trialled were Fridays off, staggered teams, annualised hours for seasonal businesses and structures based on conditional performance indicators being met.
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Among those which took part was AKA Case Management which is headquartered in Nottingham and has operations in Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester. The company helps people who have been disabled by traumatic injuries to lead fulfilling lives by running case management services and working with both clients and solicitors.
Operations and finance officer Dominic Hobdell told BusinessLive: "We took part in the trial as we have always had a wellbeing focus at AKA and wanted to be at the forefront of innovation in this area.
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"Doing the four-day week trial demonstrated our commitment to actually putting this into practice rather than just talking about it. It does take some initial thought and background work, plus reviews and adjustment as you go through the trial to get things right.
"But the pros have been that external feedback from clients and stakeholders have shown improved outcomes and that, internally, staff feel valued and happy. We have adopted the four-day week permanently now as a result of the success of our trial."
Another taking part was Flatpack Projects, the Birmingham-based mobile arts organisation behind the city's annual Flatpack film and media festival.
Director Ian Francis said that inclusivity and staff wellbeing were at the heart of the decision to trial a 32-hour week.
"We wanted to explore ways of offering balance to our employees and remove barriers for those who might find a typical 40-hour week challenging.
"Overall, we found the trial had a positive impact on physical and mental wellbeing without impacting our ability to deliver all we had set out to over the six-month period.
"Everyone in the team felt their time management and ability to prioritise had improved and, while the six months weren't without challenges, we will be continuing the 32-hour week beyond the trial period."
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Among some of the key findings from the research were that levels of anxiety, fatigue and issues related to sleep were reduced while mental and physical health improved.
Measures of work-life balance improved and respondents found it easier to balance their work, family and social commitments. Employees were also more satisfied with their household finances, relationships and how their time was being managed.
For the participating businesses, revenue stayed broadly the same, rising by 1.4 per cent on average.
In terms of retention, there was a substantial decline (57 per cent) in the likelihood that an employee would quit and there was a 65 per cent reduction in the number of sick days.
Of the five businesses which are not continuing with the programme, two have opted to extend their trials of shorter working hours.
One started late and is still in the pilot phase and the other is experimenting with a four-and-a-half day week. Three others have paused the four-day week for the time being.
Around 2,900 employees took part in the six-month trial which started last June and was run by not-for-profit foundation 4 Day Week Global in partnership with Autonomy, the 4 Day Week Campaign and researchers at University of Cambridge and Boston College.
Academics and campaigners are presenting the results to MPs in the House of Commons today.
David Frayne, a research associate at University of Cambridge, added: "We think there is a lot here that ought to motivate other companies and industries to give it a try. The method of this pilot allowed our researchers to look in detail at how the companies were making things work on the ground.
"We feel really encouraged by the results which showed the many ways companies were turning the four-day week from a dream into a realistic policy, with multiple benefits."