{"id":46768,"date":"2026-04-01T13:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/46768\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T13:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:15:09","slug":"covid-gave-us-hybrid-work-the-iran-war-might-give-us-a-four-day-week-and-experts-say-it-could-stick-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/46768\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid gave us hybrid work. The Iran War might give us a four-day week\u2014and experts say it could stick"},"content":{"rendered":"

COVID-19 gave us hybrid work<\/a>. The Iran War might give us a three-day weekend. That\u2019s because, as Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Pakistan move to a 4-day work week<\/a> because of the war in Iran, experts say we\u2019re the closest we\u2019ve ever been to a permanent shorter workweek.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It started in Asia. Now leaders in the West are sweating too. In a rare address to the nation today, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese warned the \u201ceconomic shocks\u201d of the Iran war \u201cwill be felt for months,\u201d and encouraged people to take public transport where they could\u2014to preserve fuel for farmers, trade workers, and shift workers who have no choice but to drive to work.<\/p>\n

Hours later, Britain\u2019s Prime Minister Keir Starmer addressed the nation on the broader economic impact of the war. And across the Channel, the European Commission has just urged citizens to work from home, drive and fly less, and called on EU member states to urgently accelerate the rollout of renewables.<\/p>\n

None of them mentioned a four-day week. But the direction of travel is unmistakable: one by one, governments are being forced to reckon with the same energy crisis, as the war in the Middle East threatens vital oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

What began as an emergency measure in the developing world is now spreading globally. Sound familiar? We\u2019ve been here before: The last time the world was forced to shift en masse\u2014the pandemic\u2014the changes we thought would be temporary became permanent. Hybrid work didn\u2019t die when offices reopened. Instead, it reshaped how we work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, with governments reaching for the same lever again, experts say something similar could happen with a four-day workweek. But it\u2019ll come with major consequences for those who can\u2019t take their jobs home, like drivers, baristas, window cleaners, pet sitters, and more.<\/p>\n

Will an overnight emergency four-day week come to the West?<\/p>\n

Although Brits and Australians are being urged by envirnmontal agency\u2019s to work from home<\/a>, Dr. Wladislaw Rivkin, professor in organisational behaviour at Trinity Business School, told Fortune a global three-day weekend currently looks unlikely\u2014at least not at the click of the government\u2019s fingers.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because a permanent restructuring of how work is organized is a far heavier lift than an overnight shift to working from a makeshift home office. <\/p>\n

\u201cI do not see this as a model for the U.S. and U.K., at least in the long term, because the current sharp rise in fuel costs is temporary,\u201d Rivkin says.<\/p>\n

Professor Roberta Aguzzoli at Durham University Business School says she wouldn\u2019t rule out the West moving to shorter workweeks to save fuel, but she argues better infrastructure should minimise that need.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic transport systems in large European cities are generally more developed and less reliant on individual transport use than those in certain emerging economies,\u201d she says, adding that limited transport infrastructure and higher exposure to fuel price volatility make last-minute policy changes more necessary.<\/p>\n

On that basis, she says a permanent four-day week in the near term is more likely to become the new norm in developing countries. But there\u2019s a big but. The mere fact that millions of workers are about to spend an extended period proving they can get the job done in four days could be the tipping point the movement has been waiting for.<\/p>\n

Why Asia\u2019s four-day week could permanently change how the world works<\/p>\n

Whether Asia\u2019s emergency four\u2011day workweek will have the same lasting effect as the pandemic\u2019s work-from-home mandate, or even ripple into Europe and the U.S., remains to be seen. But once workers get a taste of a shorter week\u2014even a forced one\u2014it\u2019s a hard sell to go back to the old one.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemote work didn\u2019t spread because companies planned it,\u201d says William Self, chief workforce strategist at Mercer. \u201cIt spread because the pandemic crisis forced the experiment, the experiment worked, and workers weren\u2019t willing to give back what they\u2019d gained. The same logic applies here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Self argues that once the experiment runs, the burden of proof flips: \u201cIf employers experiment with a four-day workweek and employees show they can deliver in four days what they previously delivered in five, management has to justify the fifth day rather than the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n

What makes this moment historically distinct, he says, is the convergence of two previously separate conversations. <\/p>\n

\u201cPreviously, a four-day workweek was mostly theoretical<\/a> or confined to a handful of pilot programmes. Now you have some governments weighing in as a matter of public policy and major employers adopting it, and they\u2019re doing so in the same news cycle,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s a different situation than we\u2019ve been in before.\u201d <\/p>\n

Add AI rewriting what productivity means, a cost-of-living crisis, stagnant wages and workers who\u2019ve already had a taste of flexibility, and the pressure for more flexible ways of working is converging from every direction at once.<\/p>\n

Emergency or not, Aguzzoli argues that research shows we\u2019re already heading that way anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to CIPD, the four-day workweek has the potential to become a new norm. There is a growing global trend in this direction, with organisations across different countries volunteering to test the effectiveness of such policies.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Thankfully for workers, the fuel crisis isn\u2019t the sole reason for this shift, making it more likely to stick\u2014but it\u2019s also why you shouldn\u2019t expect it to explode overnight like hybrid working during the pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe discussion around the four-day workweek is still at an early stage, with companies and researchers continuing to assess its long-term impact on performance,\u201d Aguzzoli added. \u201cWhile there are several initiatives moving in this direction, most involve large organisations with well-developed human resource management systems that are better equipped to plan for and manage such changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who gets left behind: Why the four-day week could make inequality worse<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most uncomfortable truth about the four-day workweek is who it would actually benefit\u2014and who it would leave behind.<\/p>\n

For office workers, the transition is relatively seamless and largely welcomed.<\/p>\n

But workers in lower-skilled, customer-facing, or physically demanding roles\u2014delivery drivers, construction workers, care workers, retail staff\u2014face a fundamentally different reality. Compressing the same output into fewer hours doesn\u2019t mean more rest, Aguzzoli argues. It means more strain, greater fatigue, and a higher risk of workplace accidents. Plus, for those already on low wages with little bargaining power, a forced compression of hours could also mean a direct hit to their income.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Aguzzoli says that although a four-day workweek could help reduce the current gender gap, it could \u201cwiden disparities between skilled and low-skilled workers.<\/a>\u201c<\/p>\n

The divisions don\u2019t stop there. Rivkin warns that the four-day workweek could fracture workplaces from the inside out. \u201cFor example, if an administrative worker in a hospital works 4 days a week, while a nurse has to work 5 days a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result isn\u2019t a more equitable workplace\u2014it\u2019s a more resentful one. Rather than levelling the playing field, a four-day rollout could make physically demanding professions even less attractive, harder to staff, and more dangerous than they already are.<\/p>\n

A version of this story originally published on\u00a0Fortune.com<\/a> on March 21, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COVID-19 gave us hybrid work. The Iran War might give us a three-day weekend. That\u2019s because, as Sri…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13886,488,13885,8529,13882,13883,34,13884,8530,13887,13888,13889],"class_list":{"0":"post-46768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-and-wellness","9":"tag-asia","10":"tag-fitness","11":"tag-flexible-work","12":"tag-four-day-work-week","13":"tag-hybrid-work","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-personal-health","16":"tag-remote-work","17":"tag-the-future-of-work","18":"tag-work-life-balance","19":"tag-workplace-wellness"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116329639206829152","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}