Portuguese WTR trials with Rita Fontinha and Pedro Gomez

Pedro Gomes and Rita Fontinha were co-coordinators of the Portuguese Four-Day Working Week Trial and will be sharing some of the key findings. This trial was sponsored by the Portuguese Government and included 21 private sector organisations. While organisations were not paid to participate in the trial, the training they received by Four-Day Week Global was paid by the Government. The trial had three main principles: there would be no pay cuts; there would be actual work time reduction to a maximum of 36 hours per week and the experiment would be voluntary and reversible. Our main findings support a significant improvement in terms of mental health and work-life balance indicators for employees. Results also suggest that the work time reduction was positive for organisations, as these have seen positive operational changes and a favourable economic impact, with only 4 organizations reverting to the five-day week.