You're almost definitely right and I have an experiment with a sample size of one that confirms your hypothesis.
I used to work 4 days a week but there was absolutely no reduction in workload compared to a 5 day role and plenty of meetings scheduled on my day off.
It was great working 4 days; Wednesdays were my day off and every Tuesday afternoon would have a bit of a "Friday feeling" and I was never more than two days away from a day off. Plus I could go to the psychologist and doctor and so on.
When I went back to 5 days a week, my workload was identical and my output was identical. Stress levels were not hugely different because I just slacked off more with the 5 days.
The impact of moving from 5 days to 4 days for a knowledge worker is probably a bit less than you would expect in every respect. Stress was not drastically reduced (I did school run and pickup on the Wednesday so it was only about 4.5 hours extra), and there was no huge change to my performance, probably just an increase in quality and efficiency.
I used to work 4 days a week but there was absolutely no reduction in workload compared to a 5 day role and plenty of meetings scheduled on my day off.
It was great working 4 days; Wednesdays were my day off and every Tuesday afternoon would have a bit of a "Friday feeling" and I was never more than two days away from a day off. Plus I could go to the psychologist and doctor and so on.
When I went back to 5 days a week, my workload was identical and my output was identical. Stress levels were not hugely different because I just slacked off more with the 5 days.
The impact of moving from 5 days to 4 days for a knowledge worker is probably a bit less than you would expect in every respect. Stress was not drastically reduced (I did school run and pickup on the Wednesday so it was only about 4.5 hours extra), and there was no huge change to my performance, probably just an increase in quality and efficiency.