The work gets compressed
The same meetings, reports and approvals in fewer hours. Strain rises, and the trial quietly ends.
A four-day week at full pay that holds.
Most four-day weeks go wrong in the same way. The day goes, the work stays, and five days of pressure get squeezed into four.
The working week
MonTueWedThuFri
Four days of work. One day returned.
We change the work first. Through our method, MERA (Map, Eliminate, Redesign, Automate), we find the hours that add nothing, remove them, rebuild what remains and automate the routine load. Then we measure the gain against a baseline and return it as a day a week, at full pay.
A four-day week is not created by deleting Friday from the calendar.
A shorter week works when there is less work to fit into it. That is the part we build.
The work leaks
Emails and calls spill into the day off, so nobody really gets it back.
Customers notice
Response times slip because cover was never planned.
Our MERA method changes the work before it changes the week.
The Map comes first, because you cannot remove hours you have not measured. Why process mapping is the first step.
M
Map
We see how the work actually runs and record the baseline: output, service, quality, errors, rework and hours.
E
Eliminate
We stop the reports, meetings and approvals that do not change an outcome.
R
Redesign
We rebuild hand-offs, decisions, roles and cover so the work fits in four days.
A
Automate
We build the systems and AI agents that take on the routine load, once the process and data are ready.
Return
One day a week back, at full pay, measured against the baseline.
Measured before anything changes.
We set the baseline before the working week changes, and agree in advance what success means. For example: output and service stay within an agreed range, quality holds, and overtime does not rise.
The same measures are tracked during and after the change, so the decision rests on evidence, not opinion. If one team is ready and another is not, you see exactly where the work still needs to change.
For the detail, read how to measure whether a four-day-week trial works.
It has been done before. Including by us.
I first did this in 2008, at our family publishing house in Athens. We rebuilt the operating model with the method I now call MERA, and shorter hours came with pay untouched. Years later, running operations at a digital production agency in London, the same approach gave evenings and weekends back to the team while the agency scaled up.
At Maximum4, we work a four-day week ourselves.
Emmanuel Linardatos, founder
−75%
Department costs
8 → 30
Orders fulfilled per day
+40%
Revenue in a year
6 hours
Returned per person weekly
Operations transformation using MERA. Two years, measured against the baseline before the change.
The UK evidence
The largest UK trial was run in 2022 by Autonomy with 4 Day Week Global. These results show a shorter week can work in very different organisations. They do not promise it will work in yours without changing how the work is done.
61
Organisations in the 2022 UK trial, with around 2,900 workers
56
Continued with the four-day week after the trial
54
Still running it a year later, 31 of them permanently
Sources: Autonomy, The results are in (2023) and Autonomy, Making it stick (2024).
Is a four-day week right for your business?
The work happens on screen
Admin, cases, projects, client service and recurring reporting.
Leaders want to change how the work runs
Not only the rota.
The team is stretched
And returned time would change retention, hiring or service.
Not ready for a four-day week?
The same method can return the gain as capacity instead: more output from the same team, measured the same way. You can move to a shorter week later.
Straight answers.
Does a four-day week mean a pay cut?
Not with us. The aim is a four-day week at full pay, funded by the gain from redesigning the work. If the measured gain is not yet enough, the returned time can start as a shorter week or added capacity while the work keeps changing.
How are customers covered on the fifth day?
Cover is designed in the Redesign stage, before hours change. Depending on your client commitments, that might mean staggered days off, rota cover or clear response standards.
What about part-time and shift-based roles?
They are part of the design from the start. We agree how the change applies to them, such as a proportional reduction in hours, before anything starts, so no role is treated unfairly.
How long does it take?
The Map takes 2 to 4 weeks and is priced from £2,500, with the price agreed before work starts. How long it takes to reach the returned day depends on how much needs to change, and the Map gives you that estimate.
What if the results are mixed?
The thresholds are agreed before the change begins. Mixed results show where the work still needs redesign. They do not mean the whole idea has failed, and the measured gain can still return as capacity.
Redesign the work. Return the day.
In 2 to 4 weeks, the Map shows how your work runs, where the hours go and how much time a redesign could return. Fixed price, from £2,500.
Start with the Map