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Four days work, three days off. This is what the weeks will look like for employees at the Municipality of Copenhagen from April 1.
Employees at fourteen workplaces at six of the municipality’s administrations are participating in the experiment, which runs until the turn of the year. After that, it can become permanent.
One of the workplaces included in the initiative is Radisevej, a home for mentally vulnerable young people in central Copenhagen.
– We had a staff meeting where all employees thought this was a good idea to create a better balance between work and private life, says unit manager Jonas Ammitzbøll.
Jonas Ammitzbøll at the residence Radisevej. Photo: Private
He hopes that longer continuous leave should allow the employees to recharge their batteries better for the coming work week.
– Our work is not physically demanding, but it is mentally demanding. Now it is true that the working days are longer on the days you work, but we try to solve that by putting the heaviest tasks at the beginning of the day, he says.
DN has previously told about the backpack company Sandqvist i Stockholm which introduced a four-day week with full pay on trial – and in Malmö wants it the municipal housing company MKB eventually introduce a 32-hour work week instead of 40.
According to Janne Gleerup, working life researcher at Roskilde University, similar investments have been made in the Danish business community for a long time. The interesting thing now, she believes, is that the public workplaces have started to follow suit.
– Copenhagen is the biggest, but not first. I know of at least 15-20 other municipalities that are trying similar models, she says.
Janne Gleerup believes that it is the corona pandemic that has opened up new ways of working.
– Back then, many staff groups worked from home. Among the workers, it raised existential questions about how one wants to live one’s life. At the same time, new technology was developed that made flexible work possible.
As of April 1, the municipality of Copenhagen is testing a four-day work week at some of its workplaces. The aim is to reduce stress among the staff and to become a more attractive employer. Photo: Roald, Berit
In the past, the government of Belgium has proposed that all employees should be able to choose to work a four-day week, but with slightly longer working days.
When the idea of four days’ work was launched in Copenhagen municipality last year, all parties voted for it. The purpose, in addition to counteracting stress among the employees, is to make the municipality more attractive as an employer.
– Within large welfare areas, it has long been difficult to recruit new employees. I think that is one of the reasons why employers have become more interested in greater flexibility in working hours, says Janne Gleerup.
That fewer working days can act as a lure for new employees is confirmed by Jonas Ammitzbøll at the residence Radisevej.
– Recently, I wrote in a job advertisement that we offer a four-day work week. We received twice as many applications as usual, he says.
Jonas Ammitzbøll means that a movement has formed where more and more Danes demand a settlement with old traditional ways of working.
– It is a societal change that we need to listen to. Working eight hours Monday to Friday and then having two days off is outdated. We need to be aware that there are other ways, he says.
Janne Gleerup believes that flexible working hours are here to stay.
– I think that many people experience working life as very pressured and intensified – and that they are therefore looking for alternative arrangements with working hours to achieve a better balance.
When the Think Tank Autonomy conducted a study in the UK among 3,000 employees at roughly 60 companies, it emerged that many employees experienced positive effects such as reduced anxiety and fatigue from shorter working weeks. The trend of redundancies decreased by 57 percent.
Janne Gleerup has participated in two studies that show similar effects.
– There are those who experience fewer working days as stressful, and that it can be difficult to make a shorter working week work in a five-day society. But most are happy to get longer consecutive leave, she says.
