Wish you got regular three-day weekends? Some companies are considering providing them for employees. Last year, thousands of workers across 73 companies in the United Kingdom underwent a six-month trial in which they worked four days a week while maintaining the same workload and receiving the same salaries and benefits. Most companies reported no loss of productivity, and 86 percent said they might extend the experiment. Talk of a four-day workweek has been around for decades—in 1956, then-Vice President Richard Nixon foresaw it in the “not too distant future”—but critics worry about added costs and reduced competitiveness, and most U.S. companies haven’t experimented with it. Advocates, however, argue that the four-day workweek improves work-life balance—allowing employees more time for rest, hobbies, and family—and increases collaboration in the office. “We’ve kind of gotten away from ‘That’s your job, not mine,’” says Gary Conroy, a manufacturing executive in England, “because we’re all trying to get out of here at five o’clock on a Thursday.”