People could be told to go to work for four days at a time then spend 10 days at home in a plan to split the workforce and allow people to return to their jobs.
The idea has been created by Imperial College London chemical biologist Professor Keith Willison in a study for the Adam Smith Institute.
It would mean two teams of workers at each company - who never meet face to face - each going into the office or factory for four days at a time, reports The Mirror.
After that they would stay at home, either having time off or working remotely.
It would mean an end top weekends, with people working through depending on their rotas. Fewer people in the workplace would make it easier to enforce two-metre social distancing and other regulations.
Professor Willison says outbreaks are less likely if people are exposed to others for four rather than five days, because it usually takes three to four days for an infected person to start transmitting.
This would mean they would be off work by this point if they caught it at the beginning of the week.
The proposals could also be applied to schools, Professor Wilson argued.
