Proponents make ambitious claims about its power to fix the way we work. But for some companies, the four-day workweek is not all it’s cracked up to be

In many previous editions of this newsletter, we have looked at the remarkable success and popularity of the four-day work week being experimented with across the globe, from a major pilot project in the UK to a number of municipalities in Ontario implementing it for their staff.

And while the idea has proven successful, not every business has loved it ― some have given it the old college try and are going back to the old ways.

South of the border, the marketing research firm Alter Agents ditched it after a 10-week test. Cracks started to appear when some workers kept working from home on their day off, while others were more resolute in staying away from work.

“Neither of those are wrong. They’re both valid approaches,” founder Rebecca Brooks said. “But because there wasn’t consistency across employees, it created confusion and frustration and affected the dynamics between our employees.”

Across the pond, UK firm Allcap ― an engineering and industrial supplies company ― tried a version of the experiment (a nine-day schedule over two weeks) but abandoned it halfway through the pilot program at its trading sites, while its warehouses and manufacturing centres were able to cope with it. The nature of their business just wasn’t adaptable, the owner said.

“As opposed to 10 normal workdays, we found that employees would have nine extreme ones, and once they got to their scheduled day off they were exhausted,” he said.

In the tapestry of workplaces experimenting with it, the companies reverting away from the four-day week are generally the minority. And in each case, it’s not the concept itself which they struggled with, but how it fit their unique circumstances.

At Alter Agents, when they cancelled the four-day week, they replaced it with a new pilot program giving employees an extra day off each month, something Brooks said has been successful. “While on paper it felt like going from four days off a month to one day off a month was a big change, people have been happy with this program because when that day comes, they can actually take it.”

Content written by Kieran Delamont for Worklife, a partnership between Ahria Consulting and London Inc. To view this content in newsletter form, click here.