Logically, Wouldn’t A Four-Day Work Week Scale Employee Experience?

It can and does, but that’s also not the entire picture here.

I’ve written about the idea of a four-day work week twice before — here and here — and I just wrote a piece for Vocoli (might be online tomorrow) on the same topic, so I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. I’ve also written before about the idea of ROWE — Results-Only Work Environments — and how people aren’t quick to adopt them because of the troubling notion that employees at companies are often treated like children and not adults. The four-day work week, though, seems to make sense. First off, the base amount of hours is the same — 40. In one situation it’s five days of eight/per and in another situation it’s four days of 10/per. It creates more engagement — every week has the chance to be a three-day weekend! — and fosters a better work-life balance, which people are always discussing both in cubicles and business journalism. But — it’s very slow to catch on in the United States. We’ll get to that in a second, but first let’s consider a company based in the United States — Treehouse, also mentioned/profiled in the video embedded above — and see some of the benefits they’ve seen from the four-day work week:

There are plenty of reasons to work a four-day week.

Recruiting is easy (we still pay full salaries and offer a very generous benefits package). We regularly have new employees choose Treehouse over Facebook, Twitter and other top-tier tech companies.

Retention is easier. One of the team told me he regularly gets emails from Facebook trying to win him over and his answer is always the same: “Do you work a four-day week yet?

Morale is boosted. On Mondays everyone is fresh and excited — not jaded from working over the weekend.

50% more time with our family and friends. I get to spend three days…