A COMPANY in New Zealand that tested four-day work weeks says the experiment was so successful that it wants to make it permanent.

Perpetual Guardian, which helps customers manage their wills and estates, released the results of its two-month trial this week. The company said its employees all reported greater productivity, better work-life balance and lower stress levels from working one less day a week.

The employees — more than 240 of them — were still paid for five days a week during the experiment, which ran from the beginning of March to the end of April. The trial was conducted by outside researchers.

“It was just a theory, something I thought I wanted to try because I wanted to create a better environment for my team,” Perpetual Guardian CEO Andrew Barnes said. “I’m humbled that my team has responded, and they went beyond my wildest dreams.”

In a survey taken late last year, only 54 percent of respondents said they felt able to manage their work-life balance. After the trial, that number jumped to 78 percent.

Staff stress levels also decreased by around 7 percent, while metrics used to measure team engagement rose around 20 percent on average.

The key to the experiment’s success was the staff input, said Jarrod Haar of the Auckland University of Technology, one of the researchers who conducted the experiment.

“They were given the freedom to redesign things,” Haar said. The experiment could be a model for other workplaces and become “a revolutionary way to work,” he added.

(SD-Agencies)