As Spain debates how and when to cut the maximum workweek to 37.5 hours, Portugal has explored what would happen if the reduction went a step further. In June 2023, the Portuguese government launched a six month pilot inviting 1,000 workers across 41 different companies to test what a four‑day workweek would look like. The early results, consistent with similar experiments worldwide, are largely positive and practical in tone.
On the personal side, anxiety, fatigue, and tension among participants decreased noticeably. Researchers Pedro Gomes and Rita Fontinha describe the study as one of the most impactful corporate interventions they have observed in people’s daily lives. Their findings were shared with El Periódico de Catalunya, which is part of the same publishing group as this outlet.
Another core takeaway is that improvements in worker well‑being did not require ballooning costs for employers. The financial impact tended to be neutral overall. Contradicting critics of shorter hours, the Portuguese pilot shows that only two of every ten participating companies faced higher costs to maintain pay levels while reducing hours. This highlights a potential tipping point for companies weighing a shift in schedule against budget constraints.
While Spain’s national program to test a four‑day week has remained suspended for almost a year, Portugal has both carried out and evaluated its own. The Portuguese pilot ran from June to November 2023 and included 1,000 employees across 41 firms, each adopting different models. Some companies gave Fridays off, others used rotating days off, and some created mirror teams in which part of the workforce took a day off while the rest continued working.
One notable aspect is that predominantly female‑led companies participated in the pilot and stood to gain the most from shorter hours, likely reflecting the higher household and caregiving responsibilities often shouldered by women compared with men. In Portugal, women occupy about 27 percent of top leadership roles, yet 55 percent of participating firms were led by women.
Organizational changes
Unlike the Spanish pilot, which relied on a government grant to offset potential increases in costs from reduced hours, the Portuguese experiment did not come with financial aid. Participation was voluntary and involved only public advisory support, with no direct funding. That voluntariness is a potential limitation when considering how widely findings might generalize to firms skeptical of the model, since selection bias could influence outcomes.
The government’s advice focused on helping companies adapt through organizational changes rather than simply paying for the transition. The study authors report that 75 percent of participating firms implemented at least one organizational adjustment, with reducing meeting lengths being the most common change. Other adjustments included adopting management software, automating processes, and improving communication channels.
Regarding workload volume, employees reported minimal changes in overall pace, though a minority noted faster work rhythms to accomplish the same output in less time. About a quarter of participants indicated needing to increase speed to manage the workload within the shorter week.
Higher employee happiness and stronger retention
Against a backdrop of talent shortages and stiff competition for skilled professionals, the authors propose shorter weeks as a viable strategy to retain staff. The balance across the 41 firms showed that most workers would consider accepting a five‑day job only with a roughly 20 percent salary premium, a sign of the tight labor market the pilots faced at the time. The pilots’ managers viewed this as a meaningful advantage given the hiring challenges and talent gaps observed during the period.
Shorter weeks appear to tip the scales toward better work‑life harmony. Among participants, 46 percent reported difficulties balancing work and family life before the test, while six months later that figure had dropped to 17 percent. The study also noted mental and physical health gains, including an average of about 11 extra minutes of sleep per night and reductions in burnout symptoms. Notably, eight out of ten firms that took part have continued with some form of reduced hours after the pilot ended.
In summary, the Portuguese approach demonstrates that a four‑day workweek can be adopted successfully across a range of industries without universal cost increases and with meaningful improvements in well‑being and retention. This aligns with broader international findings suggesting that shorter workweeks can support healthier work cultures without sacrificing productivity. Attribution: outcomes reported by participating companies and researchers involved in the Portuguese pilot conducted during 2023.