The 4 Day Week on The Office: Re-Defined Documentary

Happy was recently featured in The Office: Re-Defined documentary, created by Inês Santos, Noopur Jambhekar and Anagha Raghunath. In this short extract, The Office: Re-Defined explores the four-day working week. Inês interviewed Happy's founder and Chief Happiness Officer, Henry Stewart, about the four-day week and our experiences so far. In our 'new normal' following the pandemic, is this the future of the office?

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In June 2022, Happy joined the six-month trial of a four-day working week being organised in the UK by 4 Day Week Global. We are joining over 60 other organisations in this pilot.

Happy originally tried the four-day week a few years ago during August, and this was then extended to six weeks. During the pandemic, many of Happy’s people were furloughed for one day per week (or more), so everyone had to find ways to improve productivity and focus on the most important tasks. This helped to pave the way for joining the four-day week trial — post-pandemic, Happy’s founder and Chief Happiness Officer Henry Stewart felt this was the right time to propose it to the organisation.

Three months into the trial, and the pilot is going well:

100% of Happy’s staff say they are working the 32-hour week, or just an hour or two more.
100% say they are getting as much done as before, when they worked 37.5 hours
100% say their overall wellbeing is better

The comments back this up: “I am loving having a day off to be outside and active, I am generally feeling much happier and in turn enjoying work so much more.” Another adds: “It’s very exciting to have a day off and be able to do whatever you want.”

Is the four-day working week be the future of work in this new, post-pandemic world?

In this documentary produced by Inês Santos, Noopur Jambhekar and Anagha Raghunath, they explore this further. Thank you for letting us share your video!

Watch the full documentary on YouTube

Related blogs

A Four-Day Week? Let’s Start with a 4 Day August — Find out how Happy handled the initial 4 day week trial during August.
Happy Starts 4 Day Week Trial — Happy’s announcement joining the four-day week trial in June 2022.
Happy’s 4 Day Week: How is Our Progress? (A 3 Month Update) — Find out more about the progress of the four-day week in this update from Happy and other organisations in the trial.
Happy Recognised as One of the Top 15 Workplaces in Europe — Happy is very proud to have been rated in the top 15 of the Best Workplaces in Europe, in the Small Company category. Find out more about Happy’s culture in this blog.
Is it Time for a 4 Day Week? — Andrew Barnes is one of the leading promoters of the four-day week across the world. As Founder of Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand, he implemented a four-day week in 2018.

Learn the 10 core principles to create a happy and productive workplace in Henry Stewart's book, The Happy Manifesto.

Support your aspiring and current managers to be empowering and confident leaders with Happy

Happy offers leadership programmes at Level 3, Level 5 and Level 7, from new managers/supervisor level all the way up to senior leadership teams and CEOs. These programmes are based on the ideas of trusting your people. They are practical and based on applying what yo’ve learnt. We aim to inspire and ignite change in your organisation, as well as giving you valuable management skills such as business strategy, decision-making, negotiation and project management.

We also offer programmes tailored specifically to people from Global Majority backgrounds. The content is the same, but have been designed to give new and experienced managers the skills they need to navigate organisational culture with a clearer perspective on their own potential, as well as building their confidence and expanding their professional strengths.

Claire Lickman

Claire is Head of Marketing at Happy. She has worked at Happy since 2016, and is responsible for Happy’s marketing strategy, website, social media and more. Claire first heard about Happy in 2012 when she attended a mix of IT and personal development courses. These courses were life-changing and she has been a fan of Happy ever since. She has a personal blog at lecari.co.uk.

Next Conference: 2025 Happy Workplaces Conference

Our Happy Workplaces Conference is our biggest event of the year, and we’d love for you to join us on Thursday 12th June!

This year’s event will be held in London, venue TBC. We may also offer a hybrid option for people to join us online simultaneously — do let us know if you are interested in joining online and we can add you to the waiting list.

As always, our next conference will be filled with interaction, discussion and space for reflection.

Book now and get our special half-price Early Bird rate — just use discount code Happy2025.