Can working less result in more work done and time for your personal life?

This August, Microsoft tested out a four-day workweek in its Japan offices and found that employees were not only happier, but productivity was also recorded to have increased by 40 per cent.

Dr. Jeremy Funk, Director of the Buller School of Business at Providence University College, says this is not a new idea.

"I know that this is not a new concept. In some ways, you can look at some industries like the healthcare industry and say they have been doing this for a long time. They work fewer, but longer shifts," he says.

A three-day weekend obviously has an allure for an employee as it presents an opportunity for a better work-life balance, but as an employer, you still need to provide for your customers.

Funk asks, "Does it enhance productivity or does it enhance them meeting customers' needs?

"If you have people working only four days, what is happening those other three days? How are you covering the needs of your customers in those cases?"

The study conducted in Japan took place over the course of one month - a short time for most studies.

Funk says there are things that need to be considered int he long-term. The benefits he says is, "There is that strong initial appeal. 

"There are potential mental health benefits; maybe some greater segregation between life and work."

Paying for child-care though, Funk says, may not get any cheaper even with one less workday

That work-life balance potentially strengthened in a four-day workweek may also have spiritual implications.

Funk says, "As Christians, we can lose sight of what work is. I think we have adopted a worldly perspective of what work is and we see it as drudgery rather than a responsibility, as a right, as a calling - as a Christian calling.

"As Christians in business ownership, we need to take that into consideration and not place undue expectations upon people. We are going to have healthier and more productive people if they have that right or the appropriate balance between what is work responsibility and life outside of work."