World of HR: Germany tries out a four-day workweek (2024)

The days are getting longer, and for some workers in Germany, the weekends are getting longer too.

Where in the world? Germany is the latest country to introduce a four-day workweek trial, Euronews reported. The experiment began on Feb. 1, with 45 companies, and will last six months. Businesses in Germany have recently been impacted by financial uncertainty, worker shortages, and decreased productivity.

Germany modeled its experiment on Portugal and the UK’s successful pilot programs, and is in partnership with 4 Day Week Global and Intraprenör, a German-based business consulting firm. Almost nine in 10 of the companies from the UK’s trial in 2022 made the four-day workweek permanent after seeing its positive impact on employee recruitment, retention, and performance, according to a February report from Autonomy, a UK-based research group.

“This is essentially a human resource transformation project and it is a productivity intervention,” Dale Whelehan, CEO of 4 Day Week Global, told Fortune of the four-day workweek experiments. “Organizations are really struggling to grapple with improving their productivity or output of their businesses’ performance—that’s because they’re fundamentally missing the foundation of a business which is run by its people.”

Satellite view. Four-day workweeks are gaining in popularity. South Africa and Spain started trials in 2023, and US-based workers have indicated they’d choose a four-day week over remote work.

Some commentators, including Bill Gates, believe that shorter workweeks will become more common as AI expands and takes over some job functions, leading to more flexibility for employees.

“If you eventually get a society where you only have to work three days a week or something, that’s probably OK, if the machines can make all the food and the stuff and we don’t have to work as hard,” Gates said.