About

Who is writing

My name is Laurent de la Clergerie. I founded Groupe LDLC, a computer hardware retailer based in the Lyon area, which today employs more than a thousand people.

In January 2021 we moved to a four-day week: 32 hours instead of 35, with no cut in pay, for every employee. Not a trial in one department, not a six-month pilot: the whole company, at once.

Why we did it

The starting point was simple: working time had stopped falling for twenty years while productivity had kept rising. We wanted to find out whether a company could hand part of that gain back to its staff without putting itself at risk.

We chose reduction over compression: four 8-hour days rather than four 9-hour days. Nine-hour days would have stretched the working day to the point of making the scheme punishing for parents — the gain would have been displayed rather than real. Managers on annual-days contracts moved to a contract without compensatory rest days.

The initial extra cost was estimated at around 5% of payroll. Pay rises were nonetheless negotiated the following year.

What came of it

The company reports absenteeism and workplace accidents halved, turnover down to almost nothing, and a sharp rise in unsolicited applications.

The widely quoted "40% productivity gain" needs qualifying: it corresponds to roughly 40% more business during the Covid period, absorbed without net hiring, headcount staying around a thousand. That is apparent productivity over an exceptional period for the computer market, not a gain measured all other things being equal.

What I do not claim

Our case has not been independently evaluated. The public figures come from the company — mine included. They vary from one interview to the next, and no academic study has been conducted on LDLC.

Our case does not transfer as it stands. An online retailer, part of whose work lends itself to automation, is nothing like a hospital, a three-shift factory or a restaurant. What worked for us does not prove it will work elsewhere — it only proves it is possible somewhere, which is already more than a theoretical idea.

I am not selling a method. This site is not a consulting offer, and nobody pays to be featured on it.

Why this site

Since 2021 the same questions keep coming: does it cost? does it work elsewhere? what does employment law say? who has actually done it?

The answers exist, but they are scattered across English-language studies, contradictory press coverage and first-hand accounts nobody collects. This portal brings together what can be checked: news on the subject across several countries, the companies that have made the move, practical guides, and a forum for those getting to work on it.

How this site is made — including the part artificial intelligence plays in it — is set out plainly in Our method.

The book

I told the story of this move to a four-day week in a book, Osez la semaine de 4 jours: the steps of putting it in place, and the objections other company directors most often put to me.

It is listed in this site's library alongside the other works on the subject.