A trial of a four-day working week has proved to be a win-win, with companies seeing increased productivity and rising revenues.

The 12 firms, including a mix of tech, telecoms and recruitment companies, hailed the project as a "resounding success".

All of the companies that took part in Ireland's first-ever trial of this type plan to continue with the practice as staff benefited from gains in life satisfaction, work-life balance and better sleep.

Dr Orla Kelly, assistant professor in social policy at UCD, who oversaw the trial, said: "We found increases in the amount of time people spent exercising a week and conversely, we saw a downturn in stress, burnout, negative feelings - all the kind of wellbeing metrics we were gathering data on."

The firms involved employ almost 200 people between them and all of the employees surveyed at the end of the six-month pilot said they wished to continue with the arrangement.

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On a scale of one to ten, from very negative to very positive, the companies' average rating for the trial was 9.2.

Six out of seven companies reported monthly revenue growth, with one seeing a decline. Nine of the 12 firms will continue with the schedule. The other three plan to continue but have not committed to it in the long term.

The project, backed by Fórsa and carried out in partnership with Four-Day Week Ireland, UCD and Boston College, examined the financial, social and environmental impact that a four-day working week would have on businesses and employees in Ireland.

Women appeared to find the arrangements particularly beneficial, said Dr Kelly. Sinn Féin's spokeswoman on workers' rights, Louise O'Reilly TD, called on the Government to provide additional funding for further research in these sectors, "so we can get a holistic understanding of the financial, social and environmental impact of a four-day week across the whole economy".

Social Democrats enterprise spokeswoman Catherine Murphy said the Government should now move ahead with a large-scale pilot project of a four-day week.

The research, which started in February and ran for six months, was part of a broader study in which firms in the US, New Zealand and Australia also participated.