The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has sought to reduce expenditures by better utilizing their maintenance forces through a compressed workweek. The focus of this thesis is a before and after comparison of maintenance crews at TxDOT during a standard 5-day forty hour workweek and a compressed 4-day forty hour workweek. Compressed workweeks are work arrangements in which full-time employees are allowed to work longer days for part of the week or pay period in exchange for shorter days or a day off during the same week or pay period. This type of schedule allows for numerous benefits including increased productivity, additional time to handle personal business, less travel time, less start up and shut down time, improved morale, as well as less stress. Originally three districts were placed upon the compressed workweek but after four months of trial, three additional districts were included. Maintenance activity data from previous years was compared to data collected over the trial period to assess productivity impacts as well as vehicular travel. Surveys of maintenance crews were conducted throughout the study to address personal concerns. The results of the study were that there were no significant impacts to productivity or vehicular usage but a significant improvement in work conditions for the maintenance crews. Further assessment is recommended utilizing additional functional codes for more illustrative results. / text

Research question: Is adopting flextime, remote work, and four-day workweeks advantageous to employees and organizations?  Purpose: Advances in technology and the changing nature of work have led to organizations adopting remote work, flextime, and a four-day workweek. The aim is to comprehend how these could affect employees and organizations, then advise organizations on whether to implement them. Employee productivity, satisfaction and well-being are assessed, as well as potential benefits and challenges. The result demonstrates an understanding of advantages, disadvantages, personal interests and critiques, followed by recommendations on facing emerging challenges and suggestions for further research.  Method: The research development is of an inductive nature. A mixed-method technique is used, with 7 respondents contributing to the qualitative research and 120 participants to the quantitative. Most respondents are dispersed around Sweden, but a few from foreign nations are also included to get a global viewpoint. The results are evaluated and contrasted with theoretical data from prior research.  Conclusion: The concepts have proven to be of great interest to employees, with a minority being against some. Many employees feel burned out and unsatisfied with a traditional 5-day workweek, and thus support a 4-day one that would allow more quality time for themselves and to socialize. A vast majority are interested in companies that grant the flexibility to work remotely and schedule their own hours, over those that do not. Trials of the concepts have resulted in increased productivity, and efficiency, better mental and physical health, higher job satisfaction, equality, work-life balance, as well as reduced turnover, burnout, stress and resentment towards management. The concepts would not work for every business or location, but they are highly advantageous to employees and organizations where they suit.

Since COVID-19 pandemic, flexible work arrangements have been in vogue. People have started to rethink their way of living and especially their way of working. The well-being of employees has become a priority in this fast-changing economy. Improving well-being includes finding balance between personal and professional lives, which can be achieved through different flexible work arrangements. In this thesis, we explore the specific model of the four-day workweek (4DWW). The 4DWW can be implemented with condensing the same number of hours of a 5-day workweek in 4 days or simply with the reduction of the number of hours worked in total. In this thesis, we choose to focus on a reduced number of working hours, as we believe a condensed version of a 5-day workweek in 4 days would not be sustainable and would possibly lead to burn-out.  The 4DWW has received a lot of attention in the 1970s, but only as a condensed version of the five-day workweek and has come back in the literature since the Covid-19 pandemic. It has mostly been studied during a trial run of a few months, measuring its impact only while being under study. The Hawthorne effect shows that data can be biased while being under study, and the fact that the 4DWW is observed only for a few months can make the analysis seem out of time. We wanted to dig deeper and observe the influence of the 4DWW when it has been implemented for several years. This study investigates the influence of the 4DWW on employees and the organizing of work in the long run, paying attention to changes that are persistent after several years of implementation and stretch beyond the ones that are mainly present in the beginning.  The 4DWW is a flexible work arrangement that can have different purposes such as improving well-being and increasing productivity. The aim of the study was to analyse the influence of the 4DWW on both levels, the individual employee level and the level of the organization as a functioning dynamic between employees. Our thesis aims to observe how the well-being and productivity of employees are influenced by the 4DWW, and how the coordination can be adjusting to this fast-paced work rhythm, focusing on the collaboration and the surveillance at work. This thesis gains perspective on this subject and aims to expose practical implications for employees and their ways of working together to inform and broaden people’s minds and theoretical knowledge about flexible work arrangements, especially the 4DWW concept.