4-day workweeks aren’t for every company. Here’s a compromise

Companies are trying the nine-day fortnight as an alternative to the four-day work week that marries flexibility and productivity.

“In answer to the many rumors that have been going around the plants, I think I had better start out by saying—yes, we are going to reduce our work schedule,” Bill Hewlett wrote in the July 1970 edition of Watt’s Current, Hewlett Packard’s company newsletter. The IT company’s CEO and cofounder then revealed that the company would be enforcing a “nine-day fortnight,” with employees getting one day off every other week. Crucially, the new schedule would come with a 10% pay cut.

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