But there is a catch. The four day work week means productivity of the five-day week has to be maintained under what is known as the 100:80:100 model.

That means a worker keeps 100 per cent of their pay by working 80 per cent of the hours while maintaining 100 per cent of the productivity.

The push to a four-day work week sprang out of the pandemic and work from home.

Last year, 20 companies around Australia did something similar for a six month trial that discovered some successes.

When Swinburne University investigated 10 organisations that had trialled the four day week four had adopted the change permanently after the trials. The other six have extended their trials.

Three of the 10 managers reported no loss of productivity despite a 20 per cent reduction in hours – so effectively staff were about 20 per cent more productive.

The other seven reported productivity being even higher than before.

In the UK a trial found that 46 per cent of participating employers said their business productivity had remained roughly the same, while 34 per cent said it had improved slightly and 15 per cent said it had improved significantly.

Medibank said its staff were excited by the idea and executive Kylie Bishop said it was the next step in the company’s approach to driving a more innovative and high performance culture.

“For 18 months now, we have been exploring how we can work smarter, offer greater flexibility and create the best health and wellbeing for our people,” she said.

“There are lots of pressures out there right now, whether it’s the cost of living or people managing their work and home commitments.

“The goal is not to work a compressed work week but to find opportunities in our work to rethink waster or no-value add work, remove bureaucracy that is not effective and to make space a gift of time.”

She said the company believed that the greater flexibility would mean staff would adjust their way of working to improve outputs.