Global consumer goods company Unilever has committed to implementing an experimental four-day working week in its New Zealand branch. When the trial concludes in December 2021, Unilever will evaluate whether a four-day working week should be extended to its 155,000 employees internationally.

From the beginning of next week, all of the company’s 81 staff members across its New Zealand officers will be allowed to work four days a week while being paid for five, Unilever New Zealand managing director Nick Bangs announced on Tuesday. The experiment will last for a year and is aimed at assessing whether shortening the work week by one day can “bring material change in the way [employees] work”.

This trial comes to boost productivity, allow a better work-life balance, and encourage domestic tourism that could help to make up for a shortfall in foreign tourism caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unilever, which became an entirely British company on Sunday and consolidated its subsidiaries under a single parent on Tuesday, is the first multinational company in New Zealand to trial a four-day working week.

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