The Four Day Week is Here

Andrew Barnes, Perpetual Guardian founder, says the four-day week is “not just having a day off a week – it’s about delivering productivity, and meeting customer service standards, meeting personal and team business goals and objectives.”

At Perpetual Guardian we set out to test our assumptions about productivity through a company-wide trial, the results of which have made headlines around the world. The rise of the gig economy represents a new industrial era, and we have not had a conversation about its implications for our economy and society.

With the work we are doing in our company and now this white paper, we seek to generate useful data and insights to share with organisations that wish to develop their own productivity and flexibility policies.

Top recommendations at a glance

  • Give employees sufficient time to think about how they can work differently, and encourage them to come up with their own measure of productivity.
  • Encourage staff to consider how they can organise time off within teams while still meeting customer and business imperatives.
  • Begin with a trial, and engage outside consultants/academics to evaluate qualitative and quantitative measures of success.


To get more tips and information, head to the dedicated four-day week website here.

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