In some countries and spaces the workplace has recently experienced a seismic shift, with both employees and employers exploring new options. Could this see a four-day week become the norm?

In an episode of the classic French cartoon series, the eponymous Gaulish warrior Asterix travels to Egypt where he visits a pyramid building site closed down by a strike. When the architect tells Asterix: ‘They’re asking for less again,’ the puzzled hero corrects him: ‘You mean they’re asking for more.’ But the builders are happy with their wages, they just want the whipping to be reduced. Modern-day employees asking for less while promising the same output can draw an identical puzzled response, although this time staff are not asking for fewer whippings but simply a shorter working week.

Increased productivity and happiness? A growing international movement argues that working a four-day week not only improves employees’ wellbeing, but also their performance at work – keeping everyone happy. In fact, when New Zealand-based company Perpetual Guardian – which manages trusts, wills and estate planning – first considered giving its staff an extra day off two years ago, it was with the aim of improving productivity, rather than easing work-related stress. After founder Andrew Barnes discovered that on average employees across the world were only productive for a couple of hours every day, he engaged with his own staff to work out what was the most efficient use of their time. Normally in such circumstances, this might be the first step to a round of redundancies but here, the reward for recognising then cutting out the slack of the working day was an extra day off.