Are Canadians ready to embrace a 4-day workweek?

When looking towards the weekend, the end of the workweek usually seems so far away. But does it have to be that way?

As countries around the world continue to transition to a four-day workweek, one Calgary company has trialed and implemented it.

Calgary’s Flipp Advertising embarked on a four-day work week trial in January of this year. After four months, they transitioned to a shorter week permanently.

“You’re really looking for a way to be 20 per cent more productive from Monday to Thursday,” says Craig LePan, the company’s managing partner. “For the team, everybody works differently, but you find that time in different spots.”

“Sometimes it’s shorter meetings. It’s less personal time, pushing that to Friday or the weekend.”

And it seems the team at Flipp Advertising like the idea of squeezing a 40-hour work week into 32-hours.

“It’s nice to be able to kind of put your head down and focus on the work during those four days, knowing that you have a nice three-day break,” says social media manager Adam Steel.

“Just gives you that extra time to be more reset on the weekend and to relax and then come in on Monday morning,” says account manager Caitlyn Mytopher.

A recent survey by advocacy group 4 Day Week Global reports, of all the U.S. and Canadian businesses who took part in a similar trial a couple years ago, not one returned to a five-day work week

A trial of a four-day workweek in Britain in 2023, billed as the world’s largest, found that an overwhelming majority of the 61 companies that participated would keep going with it and that most employees were less stressed and had better work-life balance.

A growing number of U.S. companies also have switched to a shorter workweek, while in Chile, legislators approved a bill last year to reduce the work week from 45 to 40 hours.

With files from The Associated Press