# Story 6: 200 UK companies go four-day week permanently

- **Episode:** [226](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/226.md) (2025-08-26)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** four-day-week, uk, work-life-balance
- **Time:** 46:33–52:27 (start 2793s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/226?t=2793](https://truthliesandwork.com/226?t=2793)

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[46:33] Al Elliott: Okay, let me find it. So, uh, number 1. So more than 200 UK companies have permanently adopted a 4-day working week with no pay loss, and this affects over 5,000 workers. 2 years after participating in a groundbreaking experiment, these companies chose to make the policy permanent. So the pilot was conducted by 4 Day Week Global. That's not Joe O'Connor, is it? That's the That's different, I think
[46:58] Leanne Elliott: I think it is different, yeah
[47:00] Al Elliott: Yes, a 4-day work— no, no, not them. You want to go for Joe O'Connor. He's the guy who knows everything. So it made up of 24 companies, and Joe Ryle, the campaign director, said the 9-to-5, 5-day working week was invented 100 years ago and it's no longer fit for purpose. We are long overdue an update. Brilliant. Lovely. Basically what they're saying is this is the facts. The company's revenue stayed broadly the same despite the fact that nobody worked— well, people worked only 4 days. Uh, in fact, it rose by 1.4% on average. The staff leaving decreased by 57%, not 5.7%, 57%. 57%, guys
[47:37] Leanne Elliott: Mm-hmm
[47:38] Al Elliott: 15% of employees said no amount of money would induce them to accept a 5-day schedule. The milestone comes as other companies' staff— other companies push staff back to offices, uh, like Jamie Dimon. Um, this is fabulous as far as I'm concerned. It's an A from me. There we go. Good night. We'll see you next week. Leanne, talk us through your thoughts
[47:58] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. A's, A's, A's across the board. It's, it's just made good sense. The key thing here, and I love that quote from Jo Wilder, campaign director, the 9 to 5, 5-day working week was invented 100 years ago and is no longer fit for purpose. It is no longer fit for purpose, especially in a world that is so fast-paced, so always on, so Blurry in terms of boundaries. I honestly don't think it's, it's sustainable. We're going to go back to the day where people have heart attacks at 35 because it's just too much. It's just too much. And as we can see, it's not good for businesses either. That's insane. So at 1.45% on average increase in revenue, so you're making more money even though you're paying people the same for them working less, very much in the bunny years because they're probably working much more productively
[48:50] Al Elliott: Yeah
[48:51] Leanne Elliott: In the 4 days that they've got, staff retention or staff attrition, so people leaving, decreased by 57%
[48:58] Al Elliott: That is incredible. Have you ever seen anything that someone went, I implement this and my retention increases by whatever that would be? That's incredible
[49:09] Leanne Elliott: No. And that means you're looking at an employee engagement rate probably within kind of the 70-80% mark, which is unheard of in these times. And it's probably saving the organisation millions, depending on the size of it, um, over just one year. This is an absolute no-brainer for me, an absolute no-brainer. I heard, you know, I was talking to Audrey Tang the other day, who's been on the podcast, fabulous, very happy to call her one of my, my friends now. And I was talking to her and she was telling me about how Charles Darwin was misquoted, you know, survival of the fittest
[49:39] Al Elliott: Mm-hmm
[49:39] Leanne Elliott: She said that was misquoted. It's survival of the best fit
[49:44] Al Elliott: Oh. Yeah
[49:46] Leanne Elliott: So, it's not like survival of the fittest, ugh, hustle culture, bro, Jamie Dimon, we're the people that are gonna hustle until we're all dead. That's, you know, we're, we're the, we're the strongest that are gonna survive. Like, that's, no, it's those that, that are the best fit. So, I think it's the organisations that are savvy enough to go, no, we need to change this for our people, for our business, for our sustainability, are gonna, are gonna survive and thrive. Love it. No-brainer. 4-day work week is brilliant. We've done a couple of episodes on it, um, most recently with Jeanette Ramsden from the Curve Group. Um, and we also talked to one of the researchers behind the pilot
[50:21] Al Elliott: Yes, we did. We had Joe O'Connor on. Uh, we had Feri Cazzoni, who, if you're on LinkedIn and you know, and you know a digital PR guy from Romania, that's Feri. Funny guy. Uh, and then we had, um, I forget his name. He's got a really cool name like Bert Brizinti or something, or Brent Banks. But Bernard Banks, something Banks. We'll put the link in the show notes. I'm sorry about that, Mr. Banks. I've forgotten. But yeah, look, the quote here I think is really telling. Like Leanne said, the 5-day working week was invented 100 years ago. Yes, it was. But people went to work and they came home from work and there was no phones, there was no fax machine, there was no computers. 40 years ago, maybe you might bring home a laptop computer or have a computer at home. 30 years ago, you definitely had a laptop. 20 years ago, you probably had a phone or a BlackBerry. 10 years ago, you got an iPhone. Now you've got iPad, iPhone, laptop. Um, you know, it's got— this is— it's just not the same as it was even 30 years ago. So something has to change. Of course it does. And it— and like Leanne said, you'll work harder in those 4-day weeks and probably don't really resent doing a little extra on the Friday. If you— something comes up and you go, oh, do you know what I never did? I never sent that email to so-and-so. You don't go, screw them, they can wait till Monday. You'll go, oh, I've got 2 minutes. And then morning, have a breakfast, I'll do it
[51:37] Leanne Elliott: Absolutely. I have friends who work in, in 4-day work week organizations who say exactly that, that they'll be like, oh, I meant to send that email, I just log on quickly while I have my morning coffee. Ain't no thing. Oh, there's a really important client meeting. Oh, it's only an hour
[51:49] Al Elliott: Yeah
[51:49] Leanne Elliott: And they might get that time back in lieu, maybe not, but it's— who is gonna leave a 4-day work week with full pay?
[51:57] Al Elliott: Unless someone did a 3-day work week
[51:59] Leanne Elliott: Well, that's— but baby steps, Al, baby steps
[52:04] Al Elliott: Um, also, I think it was Rory Sutherland who said that, um, that everybody needs a 4-day workweek because you need on your weekend, you need a day to, to, to, to, to basically, um, socialize. You need a day to do all your tasks and a day to do nothing. Um, and so that's why you need it. So yeah, if you're interested in that, then definitely go and search on our, um, um, on our history for 4-day workweek. There's loads of stuff on there. Absolutely. Banks Bonitas
[52:27] Leanne Elliott: There you go
[52:27] Al Elliott: There we go. I knew you would come back to me. Loads and loads of stuff on there. Um, and also let us know, is there a shocking story that we haven't heard that Leanne hasn't included here? Bear in mind that Leanne's now a Linfluencer. She's now got hundreds of thousands of people following her on LinkedIn. Um, and also her first trolls, which is interesting. So it's obviously—