Four-day working week, five days paid. Attractive, but is it feasible?

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From Monday 6^th June 2022, thousands of workers in the UK will trial a four-day working week.

Around 70 different companies are taking part in the world’s largest pilot scheme into the ‘usual’ working pattern for the next six months. During this trial, the employees will receive full pay at their typical rate however will only be expected to work 80% of the hours they would usually work.

The entire aim of the scheme is to generate more productivity.

Four-day working week

The 4 Day Week Global Foundation was set up by Andrew Barnes and Charlotte Lockhart to fund research into a four day week practice and the future of workplace wellbeing.

Mr Barnes and Ms Lockhart are on the board of the Wellbeing Research Centre and Oxford University and they will be joined by experts at the American-based Boston College to manage the experiment in partnership with the think tank Autonomy.

The companies taking part are wide-ranging; recruitment firms, marketing agencies and even a fish and chip shop are all engaging in the scheme.

The UK is not the first country to trial this. Between 2015 and 2019, Iceland ran trials in which workers were paid the same amount for working shorter hours. These trials, run by Reykjavík City Council and the national government eventually included more than 2,500 workers, including preschools, offices, social service providers, and hospitals.

They were found to be an ‘overwhelming success’ and led to many workers moving permanently to these shorter hours.

New Zealand based company, Perpetual Guardian, conducted a trial study of a four day work week. Not only did employees maintain the same productivity level, but they also showed improvements in job satisfaction, teamwork, work/life balance and company loyalty.

Employees also experienced less stress with a decrease of 45% to 38%. After spending two months testing this 20% shorter week, Perpetual Guardian found its employees happier, more focused, and producing the same amount of work; they ultimately made the change permanent.

Mr Sam Smith, co-founder of Pressure Drop Brewery in Tottenham, north London, has set his staff a simple challenge during their participation in the pilot scheme; they must produce and package the same amount of beer as they do now, but in four days instead of five.

Those countries with shorter working hours also typically have a smaller carbon footprint – less commuting and less use for larger office buildings. Trials conducted by the US state of Utah demonstrated that the state saved around £1.36mil in energy costs within ten months. In the one day a week employees were able to stay at home, the state also estimated a saving of around 12,000 tons of CO₂ each year.

The launch of the UK scheme comes following backlash by high profile bosses against the idea of flexible working. Elon Musk took to Twitter to explain his employees at Tesla should return to the office or ‘pretend to work’ elsewhere.

They should pretend to work somewhere else

— gorklon rust (@elonmusk) June 1, 2022

Musk is famous for his strict attitude to his own work. He is rarely known to take any holidays and infamously during a crunch period for Tesla a few years ago, he even slept on the factory floor.

In a leaked new policy shared in emails, Musk wrote “Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week….If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.”

There may also be other disadvantages. The same Utah study noted above, actually closed due to poor customer satisfaction. Consumers complained that they were unable to access services that they usually would be able to on a Friday due to the trial.

It should be noted, that this study was conducted in 2009 and, technologically, we have advanced significantly. AI-powered websites, chatbots and other automation programmes are available to us at this time.

Ultimately, researchers into the UK trial will assess how employees react to an additional day off including their stress levels, job satisfaction, energy use and travel.

Interestingly, it is not just current staff that a four day working week can seemingly affect. In the White Paper published by the 4 Day Week Global Foundation, which can be downloaded on their website, they claim that 63% of businesses found it easier to attract and retain talent with a four day working week.

Over the next six months, the 100-80-100 model (100% of the pay, 80% of the time – critically this is in exchange for 100% of the productivity) will be strenuously examined and thousands will monitor it in anticipation for the results.

Four-day working week, five days paid. Attractive, but is it feasible?

From Monday 6^th June 2022, thousands of workers in the UK will trial a four-day working week.

Further reading

WHAT TO DO NEXT

Four-day working week, five days paid. Attractive, but is it feasible?

From Monday 6th June 2022, thousands of workers in the UK will trial a four-day working week.

Further reading

WHAT TO DO NEXT

From Monday 6^th June 2022, thousands of workers in the UK will trial a four-day working week.