Iceland has achieved what we all dream of: working only four days a week. Yes, it’s a dream for us too, but what started as an experiment for the rest of the world is going to be the new norm in Iceland, which decided to try a four-day workweek. Several years later, the results speak for themselves: more productive, less stress… and a better quality of life. We all wish we had that! Want to know more? Ready to be tempted?
It all started with a dream
In 2015, only 2,500 people took part in a pilot program. The idea was very simple: work less (36 hours instead of 40), without cutting the salary (don’t tell us that’s not a fantasy…). What nobody expected was that it would work so well… Maybe they didn’t expect it, but for the workers, it’s our dream!
By 2019, 90% of the country’s workforce was already in the new model.
And no, it’s not about squeezing more tasks into fewer days like they do in other countries, where the 40 hours are still there, just crammed together. In Iceland, people actually work less, and even so, productivity has gone up. Goodbye to the myth that “working more hours means performing better”, right, bosses?
Working less doesn’t mean working worse
Gen Z saw it coming from the start. They said the traditional model was broken, that work couldn’t take up a whole life, and that with today’s technology, it wasn’t necessary to spend so many hours tied to a desk. For years, people called them lazy. Now it turns out they were right.
What Iceland has done is apply that logic: use time better, rely on digital tools, and stop measuring performance by how many hours you’re in the office.
A good connection changes everything
You can’t talk about the success without mentioning one key thing: digital infrastructure. Iceland has good connections even in remote areas, and that made the transition to the new model smooth. Collaborative tools, cloud-based work, automation… All that helped things keep running, but with less pressure and more efficiency.
Less work, more life: changes you can feel
One of the most visible effects has been at home. Many men have started to help more with household chores and childcare, because now they have the time. Equality within the family has improved, not because of a slogan, but because there’s actually room to make it happen.
Mental health has also improved. Less stress, less burnout, more time to exercise, socialize, or just rest. The four-day week has given many people something as basic as that: time to live.
Even the planet is thankful
With fewer daily commutes and less energy used in offices, the model has also had a positive environmental impact. That’s another plus in a time when everything counts if we want to live in a somewhat sustainable world.
The rest of the world is already taking notes
What happened in Iceland hasn’t gone unnoticed. Spain, the UK, Germany, and Portugal are already trying their own versions. The question is no longer whether this model works, but how to adapt it. And that’s the key: it’s not about compressing schedules or disguising the same 40 hours in fewer days, but about actually reducing the load and modernizing the approach.
Now what?
Is it possible to work less, earn the same, and live better? It is. Iceland has proven it, and look at them, happy, with the same salary, and neither the country has gone bankrupt nor has any business owner died from not generating wealth. Who knows, maybe it’s not a utopia. It works. And if other countries dare to follow the same path, we might be witnessing the beginning of the end