Tech firm is forced to axe four-day week trial because it made staff MORE stressed and was the ‘opposite’ of ‘what they were trying to accomplish’

A tech company halted its four-day trial after staff became more stressed as the boss said the results were ‘the opposite of what we were trying to achieve’.

Internet services company Krystal started the shorter week in June and planned to continue the experiment for six months.

The company hoped to improve staff wellbeing after research found four-day weeks could boost productivity by 40 per cent.

However, the process was halted and staff are today returning to a normal five-day working week after Krystal founder Simon Blackler admitted it had not worked.

In an email to customers published by the times Mr. Blackler wrote, “Although team members had the benefit of an additional day off, we found that the additional recovery time did not increase production by the 20 percent needed to replace the lost day.”

Krystal founder Simon Blackler said the extra time off did not increase production

‘While the team fought admirably to keep the work under control and respond as quickly as possible, this came at a cost: working hours were now much more stressful than before.

‘You may have experienced support during the trial period that was slower than you are used to or not of the usual quality. If that is the case, I would like to apologize and assure you that things will be back to normal next week.”

Mr Blacker said he is still glad they tried and improved their work-life balance by shortening their working day and ending at 5pm instead of 6pm.

This comes after a March poll found that almost two-thirds of workers would prefer to work four days a week.

A survey of 12,000 people, conducted by employment agency Hays, showed that almost two in three employees would be in favor of the switch.

One in three employers say they are more likely to comply with the switch if staff remain on site for all four days.

Just under two in three workers said they would consider changing jobs if another company offered a shorter workweek.

The poll followed a study that showed that a four-day working week really works

Over a six-month period from June 2022, 61 UK companies reduced their employees’ working hours by 20 percent, without making any changes to their pay.

The employees who took part were surveyed throughout the trial and 71 percent reported lower levels of burnout than before, while 39 percent said they were less stressed.

Meanwhile, the majority of bosses found that productivity targets were still being met and even benefited from an average sales increase of 1.4 percent.

The program was coordinated by campaign groups 4 Day Week Global and 4 Day Week Campaign in Britain, think tank Autonomy and academics from the University of Cambridge and Boston College in the US.