More Bosses Give 4-Day Workweek A Try

Companies around the world are embracing what might seem like a radical idea: a four-day workweek. From a report: The concept is gaining ground in places as varied as New Zealand and Russia, and it's making inroads among some American companies. Employers are seeing surprising benefits, including higher sales and profits. The idea of a four-day workweek might sound crazy, especially in America, where the number of hours worked has been climbing and where cellphones and email remind us of our jobs 24/7. But in some places, the four-day concept is taking off like a viral meme. Many employers aren't just moving to 10-hour shifts, four days a week, as companies like Shake Shack are doing; they're going to a 32-hour week -- without cutting pay. In exchange, employers are asking their workers to get their jobs done in a compressed amount of time.

Last month, a Washington state senator introduced a bill to reduce the standard workweek to 32 hours. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is backing a parliamentary proposal to shift to a four-day week. Politicians in Britain and Finland are considering something similar. In the U.S., Shake Shack started testing the idea a year and a half ago. The burger chain shortened managers' workweeks to four days at some stores and found that recruitment spiked, especially among women. Shake Shack's president, Tara Comonte, says the staff loved the perk: "Being able to take their kids to school a day a week, or one day less of having to pay for day care, for example." So the company recently expanded its trial to a third of its 164 U.S. stores. Offering that benefit required Shake Shack to find time savings elsewhere, so it switched to computer software to track supplies of ground beef, for example.

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