In 2022, Peak advertised a role and two people applied. Our recruiter told us, kindly, that there was nobody else. Two years later, a single role drew 450 applicants. The biggest thing that changed in between was that we stopped working five days a week - on full pay, with the same output expected.
Most writing about the four-day week comes from pilot reports or from single-office companies where everyone takes Friday off. Our situation is messier and, we think, more common: a fully remote team spread across countries and time zones, serving clients who expect someone to pick up the phone on a Friday. That raises questions the headline results don’t answer. What goes in the contract? What happens to holiday and bank holidays? How do you cover five days with people working four?
This guide covers how our four-day week actually works, what it has changed, where it’s genuinely awkward, and what to think about if you want to offer one to employees you hire in other countries. It’s written for founders, ops leads and people leads at small and scaling companies who are weighing up a four-day week and want a first-hand account rather than a manifesto. Most of it comes from a conversation with Alex Voakes, Peak’s CEO, who introduced the policy.
Disclaimer
This article provides general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Working-time, holiday and contract rules are country-specific and change frequently. Always take local legal advice before changing employees' hours or contracts.
What a four-day week is (and isn’t)
A four-day week is a working pattern in which full-time employees work four days, usually around 32 hours, for the same pay they received for five days, with the same output expected. It is often called the 100-80-100 model: 100% pay, 80% of the time, 100% of the output. It is sometimes called a 32-hour week, a shorter working week or a “true” four-day week.
In the UK, the 4 Day Week Foundation’s employer accreditation recognises a four-day, 32-hour week with no loss of pay as its “gold standard” and a four-day, 35-hour week as “silver”. Peak runs a 32-hour week.
Three other arrangements often get called a four-day week. They’re legitimate, but they’re different things:
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
| Reduced-hours four-day week (100-80-100) | Compressed hours | Part-time (0.8 FTE) | Flexible Friday | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hours | About 32 over four days | Full-time hours squeezed into four longer days | About 32 over four days | Full-time, with one unmonitored day |
| Pay | 100% | 100% | 80% | 100% |
| Typical contract | Full-time, with the fifth day off by policy (or a reduced-hours full-time contract) | Full-time, with a different daily pattern | Part-time | Full-time, unchanged |
| Who it suits | Knowledge work where output matters more than presence | Employees who want a day off and can manage long days | Employees who want fewer hours and accept less pay | A low-risk first step |
| Real-world example | Peak since October 2024 | Belgium’s statutory right to request, in force since November 2022 | Common everywhere | Peak in 2023 |
The compressed week is not a shorter week
Since November 2022, full-time workers in Belgium can ask to work their normal full-time hours across four days rather than five - in practice, a 38-hour week worked as four 9.5-hour days. Employers can refuse with solid reasons. It gives people a day off, but they don't work fewer hours, which is why advocates of the 100-80-100 model treat it as a different policy.
The honest answer: if you’re asking employees to fit five days of hours into four, call it compressed hours. If you’re paying 80% for 80% of the time, call it part-time. Calling either a four-day week sets expectations you can’t meet, and candidates notice. As Alex puts it: “Four-day weeks have to be for five days’ pay. It’s not a cost-saving exercise. It’s about people and culture.”
How Peak’s four-day week works
Peak is open five days a week, every week. Half the team takes Monday off and half takes Friday off, and everyone works Tuesday to Thursday. Everyone works around 32 hours on full pay.
Where it came from
The idea started with a book. Alex read Rutger Bregman’s Utopia for Realists, published in English in 2016, which argues for a 15-hour working week as automation takes on more of the work. A four-day week is nowhere near 15 hours, but it’s a first step - and, crucially, one a business can simply decide to take.
“When I started to take control of this business and bring in purpose, sustainability and progressive working practices, the easiest thing to commit to instantly was a four-day week,” Alex says. “Other things take time and outside certification. That was something we could do straight away.”
Step one: Ultra-Flexible Fridays (2023)
In 2023, Peak introduced what it called Ultra-Flexible Fridays. On Fridays nobody had to check in. People could be at the beach, doing their shopping or working, and nobody asked which. If something came in that needed handling, someone picked it up.
We didn’t announce it. Peak’s client base at the time was more traditional, and Alex worried how clients would react. “Clients didn’t even notice we were doing it,” he says. “People did work on Fridays when they were required to. Something came in, they took responsibility for it.”
It wasn’t a full four-day week, and it wouldn’t have met accreditation criteria. But it taught the team that they could manage a week’s workload largely in four days - so when the real change came, nobody was starting from scratch.
Step two: a full four-day week, in public (October 2024)
In October 2024, Peak moved to a full four-day week, where the day off is treated like a Saturday or Sunday. The reason for going further was partly about influence. “Lots of companies think they do something similar to a flexible Friday,” Alex says. “It isn’t enough to show other businesses it can work. We needed to do the full thing, and be public about it.”
The split-day model was designed to answer the first objection any client would raise:
| Day | Who’s working | What the day is for |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Half the team | Quieter, focused work; client cover |
| Tuesday | Everyone | Collaboration, big meetings |
| Wednesday | Everyone | Collaboration, big meetings |
| Thursday | Everyone | Collaboration, big meetings |
| Friday | The other half | Quieter, focused work; client cover |
The Monday and Friday groups usually swap each quarter if people want to, and individuals can switch when they have a preference. Colleagues also swap days with each other when someone needs to - and, Alex says, people always put their hand up to do so.
The benefit we didn't plan for
The half-team days turned out to be some of the most productive of the week. With half your colleagues off and fewer meetings, Monday or Friday becomes a deep-work day - "the day to get things done that people are always looking for anyway," as Alex puts it.
Contracts, holiday and bank holidays
The most important decision in a four-day week is one most articles skip: what the employment contract says. At Peak, everyone has a full-time, five-day contract, and the fifth day off is granted by company policy.
That sounds like a technicality. It isn’t. Alex remembers the last part-time employee Peak had, who wanted to work four days a week. Peak asked them to sign a full-time, five-day contract instead, because they would get the fifth day off anyway - and be paid for it. “It looked like a dodgy practice to them,” he says. “A company asking you to sign a five-day contract when you want to work four. It was hard to communicate that they could trust us, that this was legit.”
Why the contract matters: holiday
Statutory holiday is usually calculated from the days or hours in the contract, so the contract you choose changes the legal minimum.
Take the UK. Almost all workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday a year, capped at 28 days. For someone contracted to work five days, that’s 28 days. Part-time workers get 5.6 weeks pro rata - so for someone contracted to work four days a week, it’s 22.4 days (4 x 5.6). Put the four-day week in the contract as reduced hours, and the statutory floor falls by 5.6 days. Keep a full-time contract and grant the fifth day by policy, and it doesn’t.
The rest of Europe adds a further layer. EU law sets a floor of four weeks’ paid leave - 20 days for a five-day worker - but countries count it differently. Some use working days, some use calendar days (Spain’s 30), and some statutes assume a six-day week (Germany’s 24 Werktage). The same four-day policy can therefore produce different statutory entitlements in different countries.
Even a national four-day law can leave holiday open
Belgium's 2022 Labour Deal created the right to request a compressed four-day week, but it doesn't regulate how that affects annual leave. Employers and employees have to agree it. If a country that legislated for a four-day week left this to the contract, assume you'll need to settle it yourself everywhere else.
Bank holidays: the fairness question
In the UK, there’s no statutory right to paid leave on bank holidays - they can count towards the 5.6 weeks, or be given on top by contract. The four-day week adds a wrinkle. In England and Wales, four of the eight bank holidays always fall on a Monday (Easter Monday and the early May, spring and summer bank holidays) and one on a Friday (Good Friday).
So if your day off is Monday, it lands on a bank holiday up to four times a year. If it’s Friday, once. Someone in the Monday group effectively has three fewer days off a year than a colleague in the Friday group.
At Peak, this has come up once in all the time we’ve run the policy. “Honestly, I’d never thought about it, because no one had mentioned it before,” Alex says. “They’re well within their rights to raise it, because it does make sense.” The quarterly rotation evens some of it out, but not all of it. If you’re designing a policy from scratch, you have three main options:
- Rotate groups often enough that each person spends time in both, as Peak does.
- Move the day off in a bank-holiday week, so a Monday-group employee takes another day that week instead.
- Treat bank holidays as floating days added to annual leave, so everyone gets the same number regardless of which day they don’t work.
Questions to settle before you change anyone’s contract
| Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Is the four-day week in the contract, or a policy on top of a full-time contract? | Sets statutory holiday, pension and benefit calculations, and how easily you can change the policy later |
| How is statutory holiday counted in each country - working days, calendar days or weeks? | The same policy can produce different minimums by country |
| How are public holidays handled, and do they fall on a fixed weekday? | Decides whether Monday and Friday groups are treated equally |
| What does the employee do if urgent work lands on their day off? | Overtime, time off in lieu and working-time limits differ by country |
| Are part-time employees covered? | Avoids paying part-timers less for the same days worked |
Offering a four-day week to employees hired through an EOR
If you employ people abroad through an employer of record, the EOR is the legal employer in that country. Your four-day week is still your policy, but it has to be written into a locally compliant employment contract, and it has to work under that country’s employment law. That means agreeing the detail with your provider before you announce it, not after.
The good news is that the headline question is rarely the problem. The EU Working Time Directive caps average weekly working time at 48 hours including overtime, and France’s statutory week is 35 hours, so a 32-hour week sits comfortably below every European ceiling. Nobody will tell you your people are working too little. The friction is in the detail underneath.
| What varies | Why it bites |
|---|---|
| How holiday is counted | Working days, calendar days or weeks, as covered above. The same policy produces different statutory minimums in different countries |
| Public holidays | The number and the weekdays they fall on differ, and in Germany they differ by federal state. A fixed Monday or Friday off collides with them unevenly |
| Collective agreements | In much of Europe a sector-level agreement, not the statute, sets working hours, leave and overtime. It may override what you’d like to offer |
| Part-time thresholds | Cutting contractual hours can reclassify someone as part-time locally, which can change pension, benefit and pro-rata entitlements |
| Urgent work on the day off | Overtime rules, time off in lieu and minimum rest periods are all local, so “just pick it up” isn’t a safe instruction everywhere |
This is the same question we hit at home, scaled up: keep the full-time contract and grant the day by policy, or write the shorter week into the contract. A good EOR will tell you which is cleaner in each market, and the answer won’t always be the same one. If you want to see where that applies, we cover 180+ countries, with our own entities across Europe.
A four-day week is an employee policy
It applies to employees. A genuine contractor sets their own hours, so there is no day off for you to grant - and telling a contractor which days to work is one of the signals authorities look at when deciding whether someone has been misclassified. If you want to give someone a four-day week, employ them.
What’s changed since we switched
The clearest change is in hiring: applications for a single role went from two in 2022 to 450 two years later. Clients, meanwhile, have reacted with curiosity rather than concern.
We’re a small team, so treat our experience as one company’s story, not a study. For the bigger picture, the UK’s 2022 pilot - 61 organisations and around 2,900 employees - found that 56 of the 61 kept the four-day week, sick days fell by 65% and the number of staff leaving fell by 57% compared with the same period the year before. Those are self-selected companies, mostly small, so the results aren’t a guarantee either.
Hiring: from 2 applicants to 450
The numbers matter, but Alex thinks the type of applicant matters more. “We get people who’ve maybe been burned out in a previous role. They’ve got the skills we need, they’ve experienced a bad culture, and they’re looking for something different,” he says. “It increases the talent pool and the quality of people working here.”
The common fear is that a four-day week attracts people looking for an easy job. That hasn’t been our experience. “We work hard on the days we’re in,” Alex says. “The team cherishes the four-day week as something to look after for each other.”
Clients: “Have you got any jobs going?”
Alex’s only real fear going in was how clients would react. In practice, the most common response when a prospective client learns Peak runs a four-day week is to ask whether we’re hiring.
He was once asked, at the end of a talk, whether Peak had ever lost business because of the policy. His answer was no - and that in many cases, the four-day week is why Peak was in the conversation at all. It has brought interest from organisations who otherwise had little reason to notice a specialist employer of record.
Output, not hours
We don’t measure the four-day week by counting emails sent or spreadsheets updated. “If we had a production line, we could measure what comes off it,” Alex says. “Our work evolves month to month. I’ve always believed the quality of work makes a bigger difference than the amount of time someone’s available.” Nor do we track time or monitor mouse movements. We rely on clear responsibilities, a reason to care about the work, and trust.
The same approach covers time zones. The team currently spans three, and the principle would hold if it spanned more: people know what they’re responsible for, overlap hours are used for meetings, and the rest is trusted to them.
What people do with the extra day
Most of the team uses the day for the life admin that would otherwise eat into the weekend: housework, appointments, the car’s MOT. “It frees up the weekend to be what the weekend should be,” Alex says. A few examples of what our team are up to on their extra day off:
- Tom, our Chief Revenue Officer, has two young boys and takes Fridays off. “Weekends aren’t exactly restful. They’re brilliant, but they’re full-on,” he says. “Having Fridays off gives me a bit of breathing space between the working week and the chaos. I can get the chores and the boring life admin out of the way, maybe go for a run or out on the bike, so when Saturday comes round, the time with my boys is actually quality time. And I come back on a Monday a bit better rested, which makes me better at my job, I think. It’s not lost on me how lucky I am to have it.”
- Thea, from our Green Team, bought an abandoned farm in Portugal three years ago. “It was a huge risk. Today, I know it was one of the best decisions I’ve made,” she says. “Our original flexible Fridays gave me the time to start bringing the farm back to life - and wow, there has been a LOT of work! Moving to a true four-day week has taken that flexibility one step further. Having a guaranteed full day off means I can focus on my surroundings, the farm, and give my husband the support he needs. A four-day week isn’t just about working less. It’s about making more room for the life you’re building.”
- Daviti volunteers in his free time, translating mental health resources so people who can’t afford therapy can still find reliable information. What began in 2018 as a meme page grew into a free mental health hub - a Facebook group of 50,000 people, a website, an anonymous helpline, and in-person training sessions and webinars - run with a network of volunteers, many of them students and graduates in mental health. He has since handed it over to professionals in the field, but still contributes translations and ideas. “I’m proud that something that started as a simple meme page grew into a project with a much greater purpose,” he says.
- Kat, who looks after employment compliance and HR support for our clients across different countries, spends many weekends at a racing track. “My daughter is a racing driver, so our weekends are often spent on the road at a track somewhere,” she says. “Having Fridays off makes all the difference. I can be there to help her prepare, travel with her and actually enjoy it, instead of rushing straight from work. When there’s no racing, Fridays are for walking the dog, doing some volunteering or getting the chores done so the weekend is properly free. That extra day really helps me switch off and come back on Monday ready to go.”
- Naira, who handles our legal compliance around the globe, uses her day off for the moments that are harder to fit around a working week. “I had the opportunity to join my daughter’s swimming class, volunteer with the teachers, and be there to support my little girl,” she says.
- Emily, our Chief Projects Officer, who moved from the US to the UK to be closer to family, uses her day off to do all the life admin that usually takes up people’s weekends. “Contrary to my initial vision of a 4 day week, my Monday off is often the busiest day of my week. But this is by choice. I use my Monday to do all of the unglamorous things that need doing. Laundry, food shopping, cleaning, family admin. The list of things that used to take up weekend time while my kids idled their time away on their tablets while I got on with the chores. Now our weekends look different. With the chores taken care of on Monday, I can spend more of the weekend getting quality time with the family. Walks in the woods, board games, arts and crafts, visiting family.”
- Aqua, our Chief of Staff, uses her extra time off to freelance. “Every time I work with different businesses and different people, I’m gaining new skills that I can bring back into my job,” she says. “Peak is always my priority, and I’d never let it clash. But what I learn outside makes me better at what I do here. I have ADHD, and I’ve found that working on more than one project actually helps me stay engaged and focused. It might sound controversial, because I do work on my extra day, but it keeps my brain switched on and always learning things I can bring back to Peak. I recently saw this trend of young professionals becoming ‘corporatreneurs’ and that’s exactly how I would describe it - I think I have the dream set up for someone with a neurospicy brain.”
Some founders bristle at that last one. When Aqua was weighing up job offers, one start-up asked her to stop freelancing as a condition of the role. Alex sees no controversy: “The business stops for those four days. That’s when we’re working. Then you need to clear out and do whatever motivates you to come back. Companies should never have control over people’s private lives.”
The recognition has followed too. Peak was named runner-up for Best Work Life Balance at the Flexa Awards 2026, and won Best Work From Anywhere company at the Flexa Awards 2025.
The honest trade-offs
A four-day week has costs and awkward edges, and it isn’t right for every business. These are the ones we’ve found.
People take less holiday
This is the problem we have to actively manage. Peak gives 25 days’ holiday, and the four-day week adds 52 days off a year on top. People still book the summer fortnight. What they stop booking are the odd single days for errands, because they now have a day every week for those.
“The reasons for taking holiday change, and that means people don’t take as many days,” Alex says. That’s a wellbeing risk, not a saving: rest still matters. In the UK it’s also a compliance issue, because employers can’t buy back statutory holiday - it exists to be taken. Track leave balances and nudge people well before the end of the leave year.
Bank holidays don’t fall evenly
As covered above, a Monday-off group loses more bank holidays to their day off than a Friday-off group. Most people don’t mind, but it is a fair point when raised, and it’s better designed out than argued about.
Some work can’t stop for a day
Alex is candid that he doesn’t know every industry. The harder cases are clear, though: production that has to run continuously, and roles tied to fixed timetables, such as teaching. Even there, the answer may be the one Peak uses - enough people, split across days - but it’s harder logistically and may need more staff to cover.
It isn’t for every person either
A four-day week relies on people covering for each other, switching days when needed and taking responsibility when something urgent comes in. It suits people who see the bigger picture. Someone who measures their job in hours and days owed may find the culture a poor fit, whatever the policy says.
The honest answer: if your work genuinely can’t be organised around four days per person, don’t force a 32-hour week. A 35-hour four-day week, a compressed week or a flexible day are all real improvements, and all are honest about what they are. And as Alex points out, a four-day week isn’t the only route to a better culture: “It can be other forms of flexible working. It can be respecting boundaries. It doesn’t have to be a four-day week - but I’ve noticed that time is the thing people value most.”
What to do now
If you’re considering a four-day week, prioritise in this order.
Step 1: Decide what you’re actually offering
Pick the model - reduced hours at full pay, compressed hours or a flexible day - and name it honestly. Decide how many hours, and what “same output” means in your business.
Step 2: Choose the contract basis
Decide whether the four-day week goes into contracts or sits as a policy on top of a full-time contract. This sets statutory holiday, benefits and how easily you can change course. Take local advice for every country you employ in. If you employ through an EOR, ask them how it works in each market.
Step 3: Design cover before anyone asks
Work out how clients and colleagues are covered five days a week. A split Monday and Friday model, with everyone in midweek, is one proven answer.
Step 4: Write down the edge cases
Cover holiday, bank holidays, part-time staff, new joiners and what happens if urgent work lands on someone’s day off. These are the questions people raise later, and they’re easier to answer before launch.
Step 5: Consider a step first
Peak spent around a year on Ultra-Flexible Fridays before moving to a full four-day week. A trial or a halfway step lets you test cover and output without committing everything at once.
Step 6: Talk about it
Put it in your job adverts and tell your clients. Our experience is that it brings in candidates and conversations you wouldn’t otherwise have.
Ready to grow your global team? Peak is a certified B Corp - and we run our own fully remote team on a four-day week, with our own entities in 11 European countries and coverage in 180+. If you’re hiring abroad and want to offer progressive working practices that are compliant from day one, our employer of record service writes them into a locally compliant contract in each country, with a named account manager to talk them through.
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Frequently asked questions
What is a four-day week?
A four-day week is a working pattern in which full-time employees work four days, usually around 32 hours, for the same pay as five days, with the same output expected. It's often called the 100-80-100 model: 100% pay, 80% of the time, 100% of the output. It differs from compressed hours, where the same full-time hours are squeezed into four longer days, and from part-time work, where pay falls with hours. In the UK, the 4 Day Week Foundation treats a 32-hour week with no loss of pay as its gold standard.
Does a four-day week mean a pay cut?
No - a genuine four-day week keeps pay at 100%. If pay is reduced to 80% for 80% of the hours, that's part-time work, which is a legitimate arrangement but a different one. Peak's CEO Alex Voakes puts it simply: a four-day week has to come with five days' pay, because it's a policy about people and culture, not a way to save money. Being clear about this matters for hiring, because candidates who see "four-day week" in an advert expect full pay.
How do you cover clients with a four-day week?
The most common way to cover clients during a four-day week is to stagger days off so the business stays open five days a week. At Peak, half the team takes Monday off and half takes Friday off, and everyone works Tuesday to Thursday, when most meetings and collaboration happen. The groups usually rotate each quarter, and colleagues swap days when needed. Clients see a five-day service, and the quieter Mondays and Fridays become focused, deep-work days for the people working them.
How does holiday work on a four-day week?
Holiday on a four-day week depends on what the employment contract says. If employees keep a full-time contract and the fifth day off is granted by policy, statutory holiday is usually calculated as for a full-time worker - in the UK, 28 days. If the contract is changed to four days, statutory holiday is pro-rated - in the UK, 22.4 days (4 x 5.6 weeks). Rules differ by country, as some count leave in working days, calendar days or weeks, so take local advice before changing contracts.
What happens to bank holidays on a four-day week?
Bank holidays can create an imbalance on a four-day week with staggered days off. In England and Wales, four of the eight bank holidays fall on a Monday and one on a Friday, so a team taking Mondays off loses more bank holidays to their usual day off than a team taking Fridays off. Employers can rotate groups, let affected staff move their day off in bank-holiday weeks, or give bank holidays as floating days added to annual leave. In the UK, there's no statutory right to bank holidays off, so the fix is contractual.
Can I offer a four-day week to employees in other countries?
Yes - you can offer a four-day week to employees in other countries, but it has to work under each country's employment law. Working-time limits, how holiday is counted and how public holidays are treated all vary. If you employ people abroad through an employer of record, the EOR is the legal employer and writes the policy into a locally compliant contract, so agree the details with them before announcing it. The policy applies to employees: genuine contractors set their own hours, and dictating their working days can be a sign of misclassification.
Does a four-day week help with recruitment?
A four-day week can make a significant difference to recruitment, particularly for smaller employers competing with bigger brands. At Peak, applications for a single role went from two in 2022 to 450 about two years later, after the company moved to a four-day week and made other changes to how it runs. Alex Voakes, Peak's CEO, says the policy attracts skilled people who have experienced burnout or poor culture elsewhere and are looking for a different kind of employer. One company's experience isn't a guarantee, but it's a common pattern.
Which businesses is a four-day week not suitable for?
A four-day week is hardest for work that must run continuously, such as production lines, and for roles tied to fixed timetables, such as teaching. These businesses can sometimes make it work by splitting days off across a larger team, but it's harder logistically and may need extra staff. Where a 32-hour week isn't realistic, a 35-hour four-day week, compressed hours or a regular flexible day are honest alternatives. Many employers find that what staff value most is simply more control over their time.
