Would a Shorter Week Be Worth Coming Into the Office?

If you had to choose, which would you prefer: Working four 10-hour days in the office or working five days from home? 

New survey results from Morning Consult shed some light on what’s more important to most Americans. 

Some 75% of U.S. adults surveyed by the market research firm said they were interested in a four-day workweek if remote work was permitted “all or nearly all the time,” but only 51% said the same thing if it required coming into the office every day.

“Remote work policies may impact the four-day workweek’s appeal,” Ellyn Briggs, a brands analyst at Morning Consult, wrote in a report this week. 

Remote work has become far more popular since the onset of the pandemic and now the idea of a four-day workweek is garnering more attention as experiments suggest productivity isn’t suffering and employees are happier. While Morning Consult asked how people felt about the prospect of four 10-hour days, others have envisioned employees working fewer hours for the same pay and the same amount of work.

In the United Kingdom, a six-month study of the four-day workweek piloted at 61 companies last year showed employers were happy with the trials and 71% of workers reported lower levels of burnout, while 39% were less stressed and 37% saw improvements in their health. In those pilots, employees got 100% of the pay for 80% of the time, but committed to delivering 100% of their previous output.

The Morning Consult survey, taken in May, showed millennials were the most willing to sacrifice remote work for the shorter workweek, with 57% saying they’d be interested even if they had to come into the office. Some 49% of Gen Xers, 47% of Gen Zers and 42% of baby boomers answered the same way.

A representative sample of 1,047 employed U.S. adults were surveyed.