There’s no denying that the promise of a four-day work week has become one of the most sought after possibilities when we talk about the future of work.
For many workers who are burnt out by the traditional five-day work week, the appeal is inherently obvious. Who wouldn’t want a three-day weekend? There’s certainly a case to be made as this long-desired reality is linked to reduced burnout, better employee engagement and even increased productivity.
A 2023 report from the non-profit advocacy group 4-Day Week Global corroborates the potential benefits. According to the report, 69% of employees participating in four-day work week trials reported reduced burnout.
But, as desired as four-day work weeks are, how accessible are they truly for workers with disabilities?
Career experts say that it depends on how the work week is structured. They emphasize that employers need to consider how schedules, workloads and expectations can be redesigned to make the arrangement genuinely accessible.
Compressing the work week can come at a cost.
Like many people, Steven Lowell, a career coach from New York City who has epilepsy, typically works 40 to 50 hours a week. “If you packed that into four days, it would not change the fact that I would still need a reasonable accommodation for my disability,” he says. “If anything, working ten hours straight for four days would be worse for me.”
Lowell’s point highlights a major concern regarding the four-day work week, as it’s often achieved by employers simply compressing the traditional 40-hour week into four longer days of 10 hours. This yields more accessibility barriers for employees with physical disabilities, chronic conditions or cognitive disabilities such as ADHD to sustain concentration, manage symptoms or maintain energy throughout the day.
“Packing 10 hours into a day for four days straight means I will likely collapse on the fifth day,” Lowell says. “What’s the point of that?”
Lacey Kaelani, co-founder and CEO of the job search engine Metaintro, concurs, noting that “a four-day, 40-hour week still requires employees to sustain a high level of performance for four long days. That model may be poorly suited to people with fluctuating energy or health conditions.”
Despite the known accessibility barriers, Kaelani highlights that employers tend to subscribe to compressed schedules because they offer flexibility without significantly changing staffing costs.
However, it’s also important to consider that four-day work weeks don’t necessarily mean longer, compressed work days. Some employers opt for a reduced work week, in which employees work fewer total hours while still receiving their regular pay and an additional day off. For instance, rather than working 40 hours across four 10-hour days, an employee might work 32 hours across four eight-hour days.
While this reduced model certainly provides more relief than its compressed counterpart, it can no doubt come with accessibility barriers as well. “A 32-hour week creates more time off,” Kaelani says, “but it does not account for fluctuations in energy or health that may occur during working days.”
Accessibility isn’t one-size-fits-all.
While four-day work weeks may seem like a panacea for all workers, that doesn’t mean that it would necessarily work for everyone.
The fact that both compressed and reduced models can present their own barriers underscores that there is no single solution. After all, accessibility isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach.
For instance, one worker might benefit from four eight-hour days, while another might find five shorter days more manageable. Someone else might need flexible start and finish times, additional breaks or the ability to adjust their schedule when their needs fluctuate.
For some neurodivergent workers, however, even longer days may have advantages. “A four-day work week fosters natural opportunities for neurodivergent employees to find deep, uninterrupted focus time,” says Shea Belsky, an entrepreneur and board member for the Association for Autism and Neurodiversity (AANE). He adds that the additional time away from work can provide more opportunities for “self-regulating activities, special interests, hobbies, and other things that ‘fill their cup.’”
Belsky’s experience illustrates how differently workers can respond to the same schedule. What may create an accessibility barrier for one person could provide greater focus, recovery time or flexibility for another.
Rather than treating the four-day work week as an accessibility solution in itself, employers need to consider whether the way it is structured gives workers greater control over how they work – or simply creates another standardized arrangement that everyone is expected to follow.
The four-day work week could be an opportunity to redesign work.
Part of the appeal of the four-day workweek is that it challenges the assumption that everyone needs to work five days a week. But perhaps the bigger opportunity is to challenge the assumption that everyone needs to work in the same way.
For disabled workers, that could mean rethinking not just the number of days they work, but when they work, how workloads are distributed and how much flexibility they have to adapt their schedules.
“The thing that people with accessibility needs should truly be seeking,” Lowell says, “is the freedom to come and go as they please, as long as they get their work done.”
Of course, that level of flexibility may not be possible in every workplace. But Lowell’s point speaks to a larger question: Is accessibility really about working four days instead of five, or is it about giving workers greater control over how, when and where they get their work done?
That flexibility also extends to workload, as reducing a 40-hour work week to 32 hours may give employees more time to rest and recover, but those benefits could be undermined if they are still expected to complete the same amount of work in less time. Employers may therefore need to rethink workloads and performance expectations alongside working hours.
That could mean eliminating unnecessary meetings, protecting periods of uninterrupted focus time, offering flexible start and finish times, allowing additional breaks or giving employees greater autonomy over how they organize their work.
Ultimately, there may be no single version of an accessible four-day work week. For some workers, four eight-hour days could provide much-needed time to recharge. Others may thrive with longer days and a three-day weekend, while some may find five shorter days or a more flexible schedule better suited to their needs.
The four-day work week offers employers an opportunity to reconsider a workplace structure that has been treated as standard for decades. But making work more accessible will require more than simply removing a day from the calendar.