Is Latvia ready for a four-day work week? RSU brings together European and global working-time experts for discussion

On 15 October at 15:30, the panel discussion “Four-Day Working Week: Utopia, Fad or Future?” will take place in the Senate Hall of Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU), at 16 Dzirciema iela, and online. International and Latvian experts will discuss whether fewer working hours can lead to better results, how a four-day working week affects employees, organisations and society, and whether such a model could help address Latvia’s workforce challenges. 

The discussion will feature Prof. Daiga Kamerāde of the University of Salford (UK/Latvia); Will Stronge, Executive Director of the Autonomy Research Institute (UK), who has led major four-day work week pilot programmes; Joe O’Connor (Canada), Director and Founder of Working Time Revolution, an expert on the four-day work week, smart work organisation, sustainable human performance and the potential of artificial intelligence to reduce working time, and author of Do More in Four; Kaspars Gorkšs, Director General of the Employers’ Confederation of Latvia; Gunita Smirnova, Partner at the recruitment agency Talentor Latvia; and Elvis Ābeltiņš (Latvia), Head of Marketing for DeskTime, the automated time-tracking system developed by Draugiem Group. The discussion will be moderated by Linda Matisāne, Lead Researcher, RSU Institute of Occupational Safety and Environmental Health. 

'Reducing working time is not simply a matter of having Fridays off. It is a conversation about how we work, how we protect our health and how we retain people in the labour market. For Latvia, where the workforce is steadily shrinking, this issue is especially relevant,' says Prof. Kamerāde. 

The panel discussion is organised by RSU in cooperation with the University of Salford. It marks the launch of the international research project Four4All: Evidence and Pathways for Inclusive, Sustainable and Competitive Working Time Reduction in Europe, which will analyse the impact of a shorter working week across Europe at a time when new approaches to organising work are being explored with increasing urgency. 

The research project has received EUR 3.3 million in funding (including EUR 286,250 for RSU) from the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme to conduct one of the most comprehensive international studies to date on working-time reduction across European countries and sectors. Nine partners from seven countries are participating in the study. The consortium is led and the project coordinated by the University of Salford.

Read more about the project