How do healthy brains drive a healthy economy? A novel occupational neuroscience approach

UK businesses are increasingly aware that long hours at work affect staff wellbeing. They are also increasingly conscious that poor staff wellbeing has a knock-on effect on workplace performance, and business outputs. A major challenge for businesses, and society as a whole, is to find optimum working patterns for staff that maximise both wellbeing, and economic output.

This research will explain the psychological and biological processes that drive the impact of working patterns on how staff perform at work. We will study how physical and mental health are affected by working patterns, but also, how physical and mental health in turn drive workplace performance. We know from other research that working patterns affect employees' sleep, lifestyle, mental health, and immune systems. We also know that these aspects of physical and mental health impact on brain function, and therefore, ultimately, on performance at work. In order to better understand the psychological and biological interactions between working patterns, wellbeing, and performance at work, we will conduct three major studies.

First, we will analyse functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from the UK Biobank, a large-scale study of 100,000 UK citizens. The Biobank participants provided information about their working patterns, such as how much time they spend at work. We will investigate how their employment factors, in particular amount of time they spend at work, are associated with particular patterns of brain activity, as well as lifestyle, mental health, and immune function. This will tell us what the health consequences are of working long hours, in a large section of the UK population.

Next, we will run trials of a 4 day working week with participating employers. In a 4 day week, full-time staff reduce their working hours to 4 days a week, while retaining full-time salary. Remarkably, studies so far show that productivity at work increases with a 4 day week. We think this is because employees are better rested, and have higher motivation. However, it has not yet been proven that the beneficial changes to workplace performance are due to improvements to physical and mental health, such as in brain function. We will investigate how a 4 day week changes staff wellbeing, using MRI scans, blood tests, and mental health and lifestyle questionnaires. We will also investigate how, in the same group of people, a 4 day week changes workplace performance. This will allow us, for the first time, to explain whether the improvements in performance at work that are seen on a 4 day week are due to the health benefits that employees experience from their reduced time on the job.

Finally, we will seek to replicate our findings that better wellbeing on a 4 day week associates with better workplace performance in international trials of a 4 day week, conducted in many countries around the world by the 4 Day Week Global Foundation. This will solidify our understanding of how a 4 day week works, across many types of employers and across cultures.

This entirely new application of scientific techniques (such as MRI brain scans) to understand modern day working patterns will enable us to make recommendations to policymakers (Government), and to employers, on how to maximise performance and productivity in the workforce. It will also enable us to explain to the general public how working patterns can impact health, and how this can be improved.

In the future, we will also then investigate how other modern working patterns with potential health consequences for employees, such as zero-hours contracts, affect wellbeing, brain function, and workplace performance. Ultimately, this research will help us to understand and optimise psychologically and biologically ideal working patterns for the 21st world of work.