When Wharton management professor Matthew Bidwell first came to the U.S. from England in the 1990s, he was struck by the dogged American work ethic.

“It was a culture that was much more organized around work than in the UK,” he recalls. “When I was growing up, there wasn’t quite the same heroism about long hours.” He adds that workaholics in Britain were regarded as people who needed to get their priorities in order.

“Work gives us a sense of meaning and accomplishment, and more of our identity is tied to work,” Bidwell says. “But it also crowds out a lot of other things we’d like to be doing.”

That desire to do other things is why more than 3,300 employees across 70 companies in the UK are participating in a pilot program to work four days a week in exchange for the same productivity and pay. Launched in June 2022, the six-month experiment led by the nonprofit 4 Day Week Global relies on previous research that finds employees are happier, healthier, and more efficient with reduced working hours.

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