Unilever to Expand Four-Day Workweek

Nov. 3, 2022

It’s coming to Australia after success in New Zealand.

Unilever is about to expand its trial of a four-day workweek for white-collar employees to Australia, after a successful trial in New Zealand.

The multinational conglomerate put 80 of its New Zealand employees on a four-day workweek for 18 months, from December 2020 to June 2022. According to Unilever, the results were spectacular: a 34% drop in absenteeism with all business targets met or exceeded. The affected employees reported a 33% drop in stress and a 67% decrease in work-life conflict.

“By getting the family admin done on a Friday it frees up the weekend to spend quality time as a family – fitting in something fun is important to me,” said an employee in a quote furnished by Unilever to The Guardian.

Unilever will expand the New Zealand trial and extend it to Australia for an additional 12 months, the Guardian reported.

About the Author

Pan Demetrakakes | Senior Editor

Pan has written about the food and beverage industry for more than 25 years. His areas of coverage have included formulations, processing, packaging, marketing and retailing. Pan worked for Food Processing Magazine for six years in the 1990s, where he was operations editor (his current role), touring dozens of food plants of every description. He has also worked for Packaging and Food & Beverage Packaging magazines, the latter as chief editor, during which he won three ASBPE awards. He is a graduate of Stanford University with a BA in communications.