A four-day weekend is just a dream for all of us, but this uber cool New Zealand financial firm is turning dreams into reality!  The four-day working week trial at a company in New Zealand was so successful its boss wants to make it permanent. 

According to a report in Guardian, 250 staff at Perpetual Guardian - a trusts and estate planning firm - tried out a four-day working week over March and April this year. 

They worked for four eight-hour days but got paid for five days of work.

A panel of academics who studied the effects on Perpetual Guardian's employees, workers showed lower stress levels, higher levels of job satisfaction and an improved sense of work-life balance.  

"What we've seen is a massive increase in engagement and staff satisfaction about the work they do, a massive increase in staff intention to continue to work with the company and we've seen no drop in productivity," Company founder Andrew Barnes told the New Zealand Herald. 

The experiment had potential implications for everything from work/life balance to the gender pay gap and the mental well-being of workers, states the report.

Mr Barnes sees his plan as the start of a worldwide trend and urges other New Zealand business owners to give it a go.

The NewsHub quotes him as saying, "The biggest resistance is from leaders. We all look at this and say no it wouldn't couldn't possibly work. Just try it. What's the worst that can happen?"

Let's just hope this actually becomes a global phenomenon. Fingers-crossed! 

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