The traditional five-day workweek is wobbling. Like a colossus with feet of clay, this century-old system, inherited from the industrial era, is beginning to show cracks in the face of a reality that demands new balances. In the United Kingdom, a recent experiment with 61 companies and more than 3,300 employees has yielded surprising results: 92% of participating companies have decided to permanently maintain the four-day workweek. They have described it as "extremely successful" and "a great breakthrough." Are we witnessing the birth of a new labor paradigm or simply another passing trend destined to fade away?

The post-pandemic world has accelerated a conversation that had been brewing on the margins for years. The four-day workweek has gone from being a utopia to becoming a tangible reality that governments, companies, and workers are exploring with growing interest. It's not simply about working less, but working better. The model gaining the most followers follows the "100:80:100" formula: maintaining 100% of the salary while working 80% of the time, with a commitment to preserve at least 100% of productivity.

The data collected a year after the largest global trial in the United Kingdom is revealing, as at least 89% of participating companies maintained the reduced workweek policy, and 51% had implemented it permanently. Even more significant is the discovery that workers with traditional five-day schedules dedicate, on average, one of those days to "doing nothing." Research shows that people can perform the same amount of work in 33 hours as in 38, simply by eliminating unnecessary tasks and the procrastination that proliferates in more extensive work schemes.

This silent revolution advances at different speeds depending on the country. Iceland, a pioneer in this field, conducted between 2015 and 2019 the world's largest pilot study with a reduced workweek. The results were so positive that today almost 90% of its active population enjoys reduced hours or similar adaptations. Belgium, for its part, has recently granted its workers the right to condense their workweek into four days, albeit maintaining the same weekly hours. As Prime Minister Alexander de Croo expressed: "The goal is to give more freedom to people and companies to organize their work time." Spain has also initiated a pilot project especially focused on helping SMEs reduce their workweek, with a fund of 10 million euros to support the transition.

Not all attempts have been successful. Sweden tested a reduction in working hours in 2015 with mixed results. Although participating medical staff reported positive experiences, critics of the experiment pointed to the high implementation costs that made its large-scale application unfeasible. However, companies like Toyota decided to maintain the reduced workday for their mechanics, demonstrating that each sector can find its own balance. Japan, a country sadly famous for its cases of "karoshi" (death from overwork), has begun to explore alternatives when Microsoft experimented there with three-day weekends, achieving an astonishing 40% increase in productivity.

In Spain, the model is already showing surprising results. Software DelSol, a company from Jaén dedicated to developing applications for SMEs, was the first to implement the four-day workweek in 2020. Three years later, their turnover had increased by 80.8%, going from 9.4 million in 2019 to 17 million in 2022. Marketing consultancy Good Rebels, another pioneer, started with a pilot project in July 2021 that ended up being permanently established. With Fridays as free days and maintaining the same salary, the company experienced a 7% increase in productivity in just one year.

What's truly revolutionary about this model is how it challenges a fundamental premise of modern work organization: that more hours equal greater productivity. The data suggests precisely the opposite. Companies participating in these experiments discover that by reducing working hours, employees improve their concentration, decrease unnecessary meetings, and increase efficiency. Simultaneously, workers report less stress, greater satisfaction, and better work-life balance. In plain words, they work less but better, and live more fully.

The benefits transcend the merely productive. The 4 Day Week Global study reveals a 65% decrease in sick days and a 57% reduction in the likelihood of employee resignation. At the business level, participating organizations experienced an average 15% increase in their revenues during the trial period. It's not surprising, then, that none expressed a desire to return to the traditional five-day model.

Perhaps the real challenge is not technical but cultural. Our societies have built identities and social structures around the five-day work week. Changing this implies rethinking not only how we produce, but how we live. Ultimately, the four-day workweek is not simply a modification of schedules, but an invitation to reconsider the relationship between time, productivity, and human well-being. As Jack Sargeant, a member of the Welsh parliament, aptly put it: "It's a bold proposal, but no more so than those who fought for a five-day week, paid holidays, and sick leave, which we now take for granted." Perhaps in a few decades, our descendants will look with similar puzzlement at the idea of working five days a week, wondering how we could have lived like that for so long.