[bonjourmr]

On a related note, I would even prefer working 4 days for 10 hours to make this quota if absolutely necessary, and though I am not particularly supportive of said work hours per week, I do obey the system. I understand that there may have some W/OHS related issues with this of course.

I wonder what sort of impacts these things would have on things of a grander scale, such as the economy, transport, employment rates, inflation etc. I refer to either lowering the hours & pay per employee per week (as discussed in other comments) or overlapping shifts such as half the employees work 38 hrs Mon>Thu and the other half working 38 hrs Tue>Fri (rough schedule of course).

Have there been any remotely similar studies on this?

[techsupporter]

Sure, it's called most any support/operations team in large IT shops. Since most IT places staff ops and helpdesk for coverage, they get more creative and flexible with shifts. Developers are seen as task-oriented so they get the business hours when the boss is in the office. A 4x10 shift is what keeps me in my current role, by and large (also because I work a "shift," I can completely cut off from work when I'm not at work because other people are paid to work the other hours). Our current shifts run 10 hours days, 10 hours swings, and 10 hours nights with each "side" of the week working four days. Each shift on the same side of the week overlaps with the preceding and following shift by two hours and all shifts overlap at some point on Wednesday.