When some city workers in Gothenburg, Sweden, switched to a six-hour workday—in a two-year experiment that recently ended—they were sick less often, more efficient, and happier. But the municipal retirement home that ran the experiment had to hire more nurses, and the extra cost meant that the shorter workday won't become permanent.
Some small Swedish tech companies, on the other hand, say that a shift to a six-hour day can make business sense.
Brath, a Stockholm-based startup that decided to limit workdays to six hours when it launched in 2012, argues that a shorter day may have made the business more successful than it otherwise would have been—in part because the work-life balance can help them attract and keep the best employees, and in part because happier employees are more productive.