The Friday File: In 2018, Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand trust company, reduced its workweek from five days to four. Productivity jumped 20%. Last October, the firm made the switch permanent. This past summer, Microsoft Japan trialed the same thing. Productivity rose 40%, electricity costs fell 23% and pages printed fell 60%; maybe because standard meetings were slashed from 60 to 30 minutes! In 1860, work weeks exceeded 60 hours.