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The account behind the headline is an employer’s description of a dismissal—not an independently verified finding that a worker secretly held two jobs. Metrickal co-founder Patrick Synge said the company dismissed an employee in January 2024 after reviewing work-activity data amid client complaints and performance concerns. He linked the review to a four-day-week experiment the previous month. The employee’s account and independent records are not included in the available reporting.
What happened, according to the employer
In a 2024 as-told-to essay based on an email conversation, Metrickal co-founder Patrick Synge described a December 2023 four-day-week experiment and a dismissal the following month. Synge said clients had complained about missed deadlines and the employee’s performance before the company reviewed activity data from DeskTime. He said the data appeared to show the employee doing work for a U.S. company during Metrickal work time, and that he dismissed the employee. Read Synge’s account, republished by Entrepreneur from Business Insider.
That sequence matters: in Synge’s telling, the four-day week was the setting for the episode, but client complaints and performance concerns were also part of the stated rationale for reviewing activity. Synge wrote that he did not object to employees having side hustles in their own time, provided they did not affect the quality of their main job.
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What is and is not established
- The incident details come from Synge’s account. The reporting cited here does not include the dismissed employee’s version, employment terms, an independent examination of DeskTime records, or an adjudication of the dismissal.
- The account alleges overlapping work during Metrickal work time. It does not establish that taking a second job on one’s own time was the issue.
- Monitoring data, as described by one party, is not independent proof of intent or the full circumstances. The available sources do not support a legal conclusion about the dismissal or whether the arrangement violated applicable employment terms.
Later coverage repeated or reframed the story, but does not independently corroborate the alleged conduct. Glass Almanac’s 2025 account and Business Insider España’s coverage should therefore be read as subsequent reporting of the same underlying account, not as a second evidentiary source.
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Does this show that four-day workweeks cause performance problems?
No. A single employer’s account of a dismissal cannot show that a four-day schedule caused misconduct or poor performance. It is not an outcome study of the schedule, and it does not establish whether the schedule helped, hurt, or had no effect on the employee’s work.
Evidence from other reduced-hours experiments offers context, not a verdict on Metrickal. In a UK pilot running from June to December 2022, 61 companies and about 2,900 workers took part. Employers reduced hours in different ways while keeping pay unchanged. An Associated Press report on the pilot said 71% of participants reported feeling less burned out, 39% less stressed, and 48% more satisfied with their jobs than before. Of participating companies, 92% said they would continue with some form of the four-day week, and 30% said the change was permanent. Revenue grew 1.4% during the trial among 23 companies that provided adequate data, weighted by company size. That revenue figure is company-reported pilot data, not a controlled estimate that the schedule caused growth. Associated Press coverage of the UK pilot.
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Those figures describe that particular pilot and its participants; they do not predict results for every workplace, occupation, or version of a four-day week. A separate University of Maryland discussion of New Zealand’s Perpetual Guardian experiment cautioned that the experiment was limited in scope and did not provide concrete, verifiable evidence. The article emphasized employee control over when and how work is done as a broader workplace principle. University of Maryland’s discussion.
Why a four-day week can be hard to implement
A four-day schedule is not one fixed model. Some employers cut total hours while keeping pay the same; others compress roughly the same hours into four longer days. Those approaches have different effects on time off, workload intensity, and service coverage.
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BBC reporting from UK participants describes practical challenges: customer-facing businesses may need continuous coverage, absences can complicate staffing rotas, and compressing work can make each day more intense. Some businesses found reduced hours spread flexibly across four or five days more workable than giving everyone the same day off. BBC reporting on the operational trade-offs.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to evaluate a four-day-week trial
Count the hours and assess the work—not just the number of days on the calendar. A useful trial should make clear what is changing, who is affected, and how the employer will judge whether the new schedule works.
- Hours: Are employees working fewer total hours, or the same hours in longer days?
- Pay and benefits: Will compensation and benefits stay the same, and for whom?
- Coverage: Can customer service, onsite work, and team handoffs continue across required hours or days?
- Output and quality: Which targets, client outcomes, deadlines, or service levels will be tracked?
- Workload intensity: Is work genuinely reduced or better organized, or merely concentrated into fewer days?
- Schedule control and fairness: Can employees choose among workable schedules, and do customer-facing and other teams have equitable access?
- Evaluation period: Is the trial long enough to account for seasonality, leave, staffing disruptions, and the adjustment period?
Separating these measures helps distinguish a shorter working week from a compressed one, and a schedule problem from an individual performance concern. The Metrickal account alone cannot answer those questions about the trial’s results.
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