The 4-day work week results are in. And it's good news for women.

For decades, workers have been advocating for fewer hours at the same pay.

The cries fell on deaf eyes until almost 10 years ago, when an Icelandic experiment saw more than 2,500 workers move from a 40-hour work week to a 35- to 36-hour work week.

The result? Productivity either stayed the same or actually improved. This kicked off trials in other countries, including Spain and New Zealand.

Soon after, in 2019, Melbourne digital agency Versa trialled a year long 'no-work Wednesday', which saw an increase in staff retention and satisfaction. The CEO even told the ABC that the agency was three times more profitable that year.

Things were looking good.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic.

Watch: Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on women in the workforce. Post continues after video.

With nationwide lockdowns changing the way many of us worked, it became even clearer that productivity could be achieved while working from home. As a result, flexibility around working arrangements started to be mapped out across the country.

It was at this time that Mamamia's Gemma Bath spoke to organisational psychologist Doctor Amantha Imber for The Quicky podcast.

Imber, who is the founder of the behavioural science consultancy Inventium, and the host of the hugely successful business podcast How I Work, has spoken extensively about the benefits of the four-day work week, which has been implemented at her firm.

"I know in my own working life, I work really hard Monday to Thursday," Imber told Mamamia. "So typically 9-to-5-ish kind of hours, you know? Sometimes I'll start a bit earlier, finish a bit earlier."

Every Thursday afternoon, she and the other people in her team make a decision about working the following day depending on their respective workloads.

"People tend to look at their annual goals, break them down into six months, break them down into quarterly, weekly, and that way they know when it comes Thursday afternoon: Have they achieved everything that they wanted to achieve to take Friday off and not feel anxious or guilty about it?" she added.

Imber insisted it was crucial for organisations to "trust their staff to make good decisions".

"If there's no trust, if you've got a manager that doesn't trust their staff, then I think that flexibility it's really hard to come by," she said. "Sometimes flexibility is taken away to an extent where people are mandated to be in the office X number of days. So it does take some of the choice away from them."

She also made the distinction between "remote friendly" and "remote first" companies, advocating for the latter model.

"The problem with 'remote friendly' companies is that they're not actually all that remote friendly," the podcast host said. "Basically, you can work from home sometimes, but you can't actually work from anywhere.

"Companies that I'm seeing that are practicing ultra flexibility are remote first, where you can literally work from anywhere, and often anywhere in the world, or at least on a time zone that's compatible with your main office. And I think that is the best practice when we're talking about true flexibility."

Fast forward to 2024, and we are witnessing tangible progress in Australia.

Just this week, a major Australian company announced that they would be expanding its four-day work week experiment due to its success. Private healthcare fund Medibank decided to add another 250 employees to their four-day week trial, bringing the total number to 500.

The experiment, which is one the biggest of its kind in Australia, has seen "significant and sustained improvements in employee engagement, job satisfaction, and the health and wellbeing of participants", said Kylie Bishop, Medibank's Head of People, Spaces and Sustainability.

The company has also maintained business performance and customer outcomes.

These improvements are particularly encouraging for women, who are famously burdened with the majority of the mental load and caring responsibilities. As per the National Institute of Health, in June 2024, two out of three family caregivers are female, with women reporting a "higher burden" than men in caregiving roles. An extra day back in the calendar may encourage a more equitable distribution of the mental load within households.

What's more, companies that embrace this model may attract women who might otherwise opt out of the workforce due to inflexible schedules.

Listen to the full episode of The Quicky below.

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