When Michael Arney, the founder of an eight-person marketing design agency in Minneapolis, Minnesota, learned an employee was leaving for a 50% raise at a larger company, he knew he had to make a change or it would happen again.
"I just couldn't compete with the monetary offer," said Arney, recounting the moment in January 2022 when he first considered a four-day, 32-hour workweek for his company Halftone Digital.
Within two months, the shorter hours took effect without a reduction in pay.
"I thought it was a pretty sweet deal," Arney told ABC News. "Nobody has left since."
Halftone Digital is among a growing roster of companies that use a four-day workweek, fueling a movement that has accelerated amid a pandemic-era reconsideration of the workplace, experts told ABC News.
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However, the four-day workweek faces formidable obstacles to nationwide adoption, they added.
Here's what to know about the rise of the four-day workweek, how it works and its prospects for implementation across the U.S.:
A host of countries and U.S. states have moved toward a four-day workweek or considered doing so, Juliet Schor, an economist in the Boston College Sociology Department who studies the issue, told ABC News.
Spain, Iceland and South Africa are among the nations that have implemented a trial of the four-day workweek for select companies and workers.
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