Another official four-day week pilot kicks off in the UK

A fresh pilot of a four-day working week is currently taking place in the UK, despite several tech giants recently mandating five days a week in the office for their staff. Around a thousand workers from 17 businesses will try out working four days a week instead of five in the optional trial, where pay will remain the same. …

[Guy de Loimbard]

9 Day fortnight

The last time I saw that being deployed I had to work the extra hours the "Day off" provided......

Not really doing what was intended, insofar, it was adding to the stress.

Then again it was a company based in the USofA and I was a consultant, so it's all about the hours billed.....

Still, having a long weekend, every other week was still good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 9 Day fortnight

I worked in UK for a US company a few years ago. The US mandated a 9-day fortnight but the UK gave us Friday afternoons off every week - so we never got a Friday lie-in and 3-day weekend. The company expected to make the time up by people working a bit longer in the week, but most of the senior staff were working long hours anyway so they couldn't mandate working even later. The first week of its operation my boss put a meeting in the diary for 3pm on Friday afternoon. He sat in an almost empty meeting room phoning people to ask why they weren't in his meeting. I left not long after that.

[David Hicklin]

Re: 9 Day fortnight

Had a 9 day fortnight at a UK firm in the 1990's, got every other Friday off. This was in response to a 35(!) hour working week at the time, so we would have only done half a Friday, they went back to 37 later and a half day Friday.

I was working in the sales office but also doing IT part time, so ended up with the 2nd Friday being a day of overtime dedicated to IT work !

[A Non e-mouse]

A four day week is appealing: No-one will be booking meetings for the later hours in the day so I might actually be able to get on with some work.

[Lee D]

Like universal basic income, working from home, and now the 4-day work week - every single trial ever proves that it's better for everyone once you remove the dumb concerns of outdated employers...

... and nobody ever does bugger-all about it.

[Headley_Grange]

A problem is that its a indictment of management. If your team can get everything done in 4 days that they used to do in 5 without any changes in what the manager does then what the fuck was management doing before? Maybe if they sacked the managers we could go to a 7-day fortnight.

[Persona]

If you don't prove that a four day week works, you can just adopt it. The topic then becomes why not a 3 day week, 2, 1, zero? We sort of know a zero day work isn't going to work.

It all comes down to productivity. It's hard to build a consistent argument that a four day week is more productive than a five day week without that same argument also suggesting that a three day week might be better.

I personally have worked at a place that had a 4.5 day work and know I would have been more productive if it was a 5 day week. Actually I was very productive on the half days as I used them to get home chores done rather than work work. Even better was that for half a days holiday I could take the entire day off. Very enjoyable, but I was definitely less productive at work in the many weeks I didn't work Friday.

[John Robson]

"It's hard to build a consistent argument that a four day week is more productive than a five day week without that same argument also suggesting that a three day week might be better."

Really - if it takes about 40 hours a week, you can spread that over five or four days with reasonable comfort, but cramming it into three is getting pretty difficult.

It's fairly easy to suggest that the fewer hours you're at work (down to some minimum) the more you're likely to get done in each of those hours.

But that needs multiplying up by the hours spent at work.

So there is clearly some a local maximum between 0 and 168 hours.

But there will also be multiple ways of arranging those hours... I can guarantee that if the max is at 40 hours, you won't get that much done with 2 20 hour shifts and a five day weekend.

[tony72]

I dispute your claim about UBI, most of the reportage I've seen lately on UBI has been of the "UBI has failed" variety, however that's an aside. As far as the 4-day week is concerned, I'm one of the apparently lucky few that works for an employer that has implemented a 4-day week, since a few years ago in fact. I can attest that everyone here is happy with it, both workers and management, and productivity has been maintained. It does work, and it is a mystery to me why more companies don't do it. Obviously the nature of some businesses would make it impractical, but for those that can, you know, you really should.

[doublelayer]

I think pretty much everyone would like a four-day week. The problem is that the studies of four-day weeks do things which won't happen in practice if it became the norm. Nearly every article I've read, including this one, mentions that one of the main things they do when running the study is cancel some meetings. Unsurprisingly, this improves productivity. However, they could probably have increased productivity even more by canceling pointless meetings but still working five days a week, which leads us to conclude that they could have had good productivity by not starting the pointless meetings in the first place. Yet, they did, and I don't think they would stop just because the weeks are shorter. They can manage it for the study, but if they kept the four-day week going, someone would start to recreate the pointless meetings and productivity would drop again.

There are probably a lot of businesses that could achieve what they want with a four-day week, but I don't expect that many will when the idea of a fifth day, which you can either use for additional work or for not having to cancel meetings, is available and widely accepted. There are a lot of businesses who care more about having some meetings than about the clear cost they have, as most or all of us will know from experience of an hour or two spent doing nothing because someone wants you to be there. The ones who care more about performance and avoided these would probably see no or low benefits from trying a four-day week, even though the studies of less dedicated companies show improvements.

[LybsterRoy]

I wish I could give more than one upvote simply on the basis you've given some thought to it and applied a bit of logic.

[Martin Summers]

"... and nobody ever does bugger-all about it."

Because human beings, especially those in charge of businesses, have a deeply ingrained behaviour of fucking over other human beings. Essentially it comes down to three words, "why should they".

Everyone is too scared to implement the changes because they might lose their profits. No-one remembers that profit doesn't matter a jot when you've burned yourself out or got to the end of your working life and eventually drop dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pull the other one. Most folk nowadays don’t know what hard work is.

Millenials and Gen Z’ers all cried just having to go back to the office, now they cry about having to work 5 days a week.

Two generations that want everything given to them on a plate without having to work for it.

My heart bleeds…..

[Anonymous Coward]

> universal basic income

UBI idea is nonsense. Delete taxes first.

Taking in account regular gigantic bailouts and stimulus, delete all taxes and print money for public spending instead. Such money printing will be a fair tax on everyone.

Working will not be punished, so businesses will thrive, there will be abundance of goods and services. Huge tax collection supervision overhead will be removed from both public and private sectors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny as - all the claims that WFH doesn’t “.damage productivity” - ltend to come from the individuals who are less productive at home doing the housework and everything else that isn’t work LOL

Since Covid my manager and our team have become a laughing stock - half of them turn up over an hour late to the office on days they’re required in, spend the day chatting, go to the gym for 2 hours and then go home an hour early.

If that’s how they behave in the office you can guarantee they’re worse at home, but the sense of self entitlement remains strong despite this irresponsible behaviour.

[Al fazed]

Er

Aren't AWS and Dell American companies ?

Why did the article not mention actual British companies which are not taking part in the pilot.

Using these two players as examples of "nay sayers" sort of waters down the impact of the four day week pilot.

Maybe this article was really written by a Trump bot ?

ALF

[Sceptic Tank]

Re: Er

The war is over, Al

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Er

No, only the battle was lost. The War is Forever.

[Andy The Hat]

I like most of the assumptions that this will make a nice long weekend - from most companies will still need to cover Mondays and Fridays so some people will get Tuesdays or Wednesdays off which doesn't sound so great. And the statement "if you can just do this for tomorrow as you aren't in on Fridays" is the obvious fly in the you-think-you'll-get-time-off ointment.

[Evilgoat76]

After a less than sucessful attempt at unaided flight I smashed three vertabrae and got signed off for 6 months. This has demonstrated a number if things

1) The Dell Precision built in keyboard is awful.

2) Unaided humans fly about as well as bricks

3) A UHF marine antenna cannot support the wieght of an average middle aged human male

4)

I cannot afford to not work for that long, but I can arrange for manual things to be someone elses issue. You don't realise how much you use core muscles sitting down until you try and do it with a proper spinal injury so I decided that in the interests of being able to walk on Saturdy I'll go for a 4 day week and take weds off. Surprisingly this is actually a really good compromise. I am definiately finding the time I am in the office more productive that pre injury because there's no middle of the week "why am I doing this?" and I'm fresh for the four days I am there and way more focused. I think a perm 3 day weekend would slowly turn Monday into a hellish waste of time, most IT people know Monday morning is all the stuipid built up over the weekend being vented and the chanced of a Monday being useful in any customer facing role is slim.

Traditionally if I *had* to go on site I'd use Thursday for this but I really am debating moving it to Weds and making it a "if no on site then day off" arrangement. I know a LOT of retail shops in smaller shopping areas generally do a Thursday off to retain a 5 day weekend.

[John Robson]

Having Wednesdays off is a likely a really good division for work productivity.

[Headley_Grange]

Outside the OP's flying injuries it depends whether you like or loathe your job. If you're on the loathe side of the spectrum then three straight days away from the company would be much better than a Wednesday break. Wednesday would just be a day-long Sunday evening with the pall of work the next day hanging over you.

I think that job happines is something that's missing in the analyses of 4-day weeks. I hated one of my past full-time jobs and Fridays off would have been a strong motivator for me because being anywhere was better than being at work.

[John Robson]

It's also unlikely that most companies would shut down on wednesdays, so there would necessarily be some variation in which "extra" day you got.

[David Hicklin]

Half in one week, half the other

[Anonymous Coward]

The missing board min

We tested a 4 day week and productivity was broadly maintained.

Ah, so productivity maintained with the plebs doing a 4 days week? Great, we will keep the 5 day week and expect a productivity bump then...

Signed

The Bosses

[Nick.fox]

once "4 day work week" becomes a search filter on job boards, like "fully remote" already is, HR depts will have to take notice. People who have jobs have the luxury of time finding a new job. Traditionally this was just "better position" and " more money" now it includes "remote" and "4-days"

It won't be a rapid exodus, it will be a slow drain of skilled workers to forward thinking companies.

[elsergiovolador]

5th day

5th day for moonlighting.

With the current cost of living it is unlikely that people will just sit Friday out.

That will be spent on learning a new trade, doing odd jobs, onlyfans, tweaking CV, job interviews and what not.

Not necessarily a bad thing. Though employers should be banned from putting non compete clauses in their employment contracts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it still 40 hours?

So I have done a 4-day week for the past 5 years.

However it's still 40hrs/week. I do 4 10hr days, and I get a 3-day weekend.

Since I take forever to get going, and forever to stop, I was working late anyway. This just made it official.

The 3 day weekend is really nice for getting my stuff done. There's a lot you really can't do in 2 days, and having guaranteed Fridays helps schedule stuff.

We do have to go in Wednesdays, and that is useful for doing stuff like updating smart cards and bashing stuff with a stick that needs it.

A co-worker got hosed by having his day off on Mondays so we'd still have someone around Friday to support things, and in the US, EVERY holiday is a Monday, just about. Work arranged extra holidays/time off for him.

If it's not 40 hours a week, then WTF? Are people expecting pay for no work? (sorry, rhetorical question)

[Nick.fox]

Re: Is it still 40 hours?

yes, thats exactly the idea.

32 hour working week with no loss of pay

https://www.4dayweek.co.uk/why-a-4-day-week

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Is it still 40 hours?

I had a look at that sight - quite a few gold standard accredited employers. Since the site didn't give any indication I', going to guess that if you added up the total number of employees you might get to one or two more than the number of companies.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Is it still 40 hours?

"If it's not 40 hours a week, then WTF? Are people expecting pay for no work? (sorry, rhetorical question)"

Here in the UK, 7.5 hours per days, 37.5 hours per week is pretty normal nowadays, has been for a decade or more. Even fewer in some cases with early finish on Fridays.

[Headley_Grange]

Re: Is it still 40 hours?

Decade? It was 37hrs when I started work in 1983. Got out half-hour early on Fridays.

[John Brown (no body)]

"We are excited..."

Are you? Really? Or is it more like "pleased". Excited implies you're jumping up and down and can hardly contain yourself.

[Boris the Cockroach]

We're still

stuck on a full 5 day week here.... some customers have moved to 4.5 days and 3 have gone to 4 day weeks (lucky basts)

But the most important thing to note is that friday lunchtimes are taken in the pub... which means next to nothing gets done in the afternoon anyway..(well not by me )

[J.G.Harston]

I can't afford to stay alive on four days' pay. I can barely make ends meet on five days' pay.