What to discuss with your team before shortening the working week

First, agree what a “shorter week” really means

The board announces: “From next quarter we’re working four days.” Some people take this to mean 32 hours on the same pay. Others are afraid of four ten-hour days, and customer service staff wonder who will answer the phones on Fridays. A single slogan conceals several completely different models. So before discussing the benefits, you need to be precise: how many hours the week will cover, whether pay will stay the same, whether everyone will have the same day off, how the rota will change and which tasks remain mandatory. Separately, you need to identify which roles require continuous cover. You cannot assume that a plan designed for project specialists can be copied to a reception desk, a hospital or a manufacturing plant. Language such as “everyone gets an extra day off” is particularly risky when some people will have to work on a rota basis. An honest opening sounds like this: “We’re testing a solution, not a ready-made answer to every need.”

What the research shows – and what we don’t know yet

In a study published in Nature Human Behaviour in 2025, Fan, Schor, Kelly and colleagues analysed pilots in 141 organisations across six countries, covering 2,896 employees. After work was reorganised and a six-month trial was run, improvements were recorded across a range of well-being indicators that were not observed in twelve control companies. This is a valuable finding, but the organisations were not randomly assigned to the model; they were interested in the change and prepared their processes before the experiment. The results therefore do not allow anyone to promise the same improvement to every company, nor an automatic rise in sales. In Poland, a government pilot of reduced working hours with no loss of pay is under way in 2026; testing is scheduled from 1 January to 31 December 2026, with a summary due in 2027. It should not yet be described as completed evidence. For a specific team, the key question remains what needs to change in its processes for the reduction in hours to be real.

How not to turn five days of pressure into four days of rushing

The biggest trap arises when a company shortens the calendar but keeps the same number of meetings, reports, sign-offs and urgent exceptions. The day off may then be paid for with longer shifts or with informally answering messages. The team should therefore look at how its work is organised: which meetings do not end in a decision, which reports actually have a reader, where tasks sit waiting for approval, what is repeated unnecessarily and what can be automated without lowering quality. This is not about ordering people to “work faster”. A service company, for example, might cut the number of progress meetings from five to two, but it must check that this does not come at the expense of coordination. People who do physical work do not always have the same scope to do their tasks in less time. If the plan rests on the assumption that everyone will simply speed up by a fifth, it is worth being honest that a way to genuinely reduce working time has not yet been found.

A fair division of on-call duties matters more than an identical calendar

A team is made up of advisers who can work asynchronously and consultants who serve customers during opening hours. If all the advisers have Fridays off while the consultants work on a rota, conflict can arise even when everyone’s formal hours go down. That is because people compare not only pay and time, but also predictability, the ability to plan their lives and their influence over the rota. The meta-analysis by Colquitt and colleagues on organisational justice highlights the importance of both the outcome and the way decisions are made. It does not prove which rota is best, but it does make the case for transparent rules. Before the start, it is worth agreeing how days off are chosen, how on-call duties rotate, when rotas are published, how shifts can be swapped and the rules for taking annual leave. For some roles, additional hiring or reduced service hours may be necessary. That is a decision about the business model, not a question of employee motivation.

How to run the conversation without making promises you can’t keep

A manager might start like this: “We want to see whether we can shorten working hours without lowering the quality of service or pay. We don’t have a finished rota yet. I’d really like you to tell me where this plan might not work.” After that, it is worth collecting answers by role: which tasks cannot wait until Monday, when joint meetings are needed, which constraints stem from the law or from contracts, and who can cover for an absent colleague. Difficult questions should be welcome, for example: “Who’s going to serve customers when everyone wants Friday off?” When someone is worried about losing a bonus or taking on more duties, the manager should not reply that “the research has shown nothing but benefits”. It is better to set out what has already been approved, what is a hypothesis and what needs to be negotiated with HR or customers. After the meeting, it is worth sending round a list of issues that still need a decision and the date of the next update.

How to design a pilot that can be assessed honestly

Before the trial, agree a baseline period and a set of indicators, such as service quality, timeliness, number of errors, customer satisfaction, absenteeism, overload and the hours actually worked. Also collect information about work done outside the rota. If a team reports 32 hours but regularly finishes tasks in the evening, the formal result will be misleading. Different groups of employees need to be involved in the assessment, and their experiences should be looked at separately rather than reporting only the organisation-wide average. In the Polish government pilot, participants must keep their pay and specified employment levels must be maintained; the projects are monitored through surveys. This shows that reducing working time requires measurement and safeguards, but it is not a universal recipe for every company. After the first month, it is worth discussing what to improve, and at the end of the whole trial, making a decision: continue, change the model or drop it. An honest pilot allows for any of these answers.

Shortening the working week starts with precision, not with a slogan about Fridays off. You need to clarify hours and pay, ensure adequate staffing and reduce unnecessary workload. Only then can you honestly assess the effects on people, customers and results. Both the outcome itself and the way the rules are set matter.

How Em helps you prepare your team for a conversation about changing working hours

An operations director wants to present a proposal for a shorter week to a team that includes both office staff and people working on-call shifts. He describes to Em the assumptions of the trial, the planned hours and the concerns about customer cover. He asks for two versions of the opening: one for people who see the change as a benefit, and another for those who are afraid of extra workload. Em helps him put together questions: “Which tasks can’t wait?”, “Which meetings could we shorten?”, “What would feel unfair to you?” If the team’s collaboration context is available, differences in preferences and in the ways people react to change can be taken into account. The director also practises responding to demands for guarantees he cannot yet give. Finally, he and Em prepare a summary: the agreed rules, unresolved issues, the people responsible and the date of the next conversation. As a result, announcing the pilot becomes the start of designing the work together, rather than an attempt to generate as much enthusiasm as possible.