The 4 day working week – can it really work? 

The working week has started to look very different indeed. Increasingly, the traditional Monday to Friday commute to the office has been replaced by a variety of new set ups: homeworking, hybrid working, hot desking – the buzzword is ‘flexibility’. As younger generations enter the world of work, bringing with them new expectations, competition to secure the best people has meant that organisations who refuse to consider different approaches to working risk being left behind. 

Adzuna co-founder Andrew Hunter notes the effect that Covid-19 has had on the outlook of the workforce. “Work-life balance has come into focus since the pandemic and employees are demanding more”. Coupled with a shortage in labour post-lockdown, with many young people going back into education and over 55s taking early retirement, employers are under pressure to consider new ways of making their offer more attractive, particularly to the Generation Z market.   

Joe O’Connor, the chief executive of not-for-profit group 4 Day Week Campaign said that companies were beginning to realise that the ‘new frontier for competition is quality of life’. 

A long term solution to work/life balance issues?  

It’s not all down to Covid, though. Even before lockdown hit and remote working became widespread, companies were trialling more flexible approaches away from the 9-5 in order to attract – and perhaps just as importantly, as I have discussed in a previous blog –  retain staff.  One of the innovations considered was a shorter working week, which as I discussed in my blog, had experienced success in Japan back in 2019 and was even part of Labour’s manifesto of the same year.  

The concept of reducing hours but not reducing output or wages had gained traction even before Covid-19 hit, leading to a six month long, large-scale trial , which finally began in June 2022. Organisations as diverse as software companies, tax specialists and even a fish and chip shop took on the commitment to six months of working the model which promised employees 100% of pay for 80% of time, in return for maintainning previous levels of productivity. And the results certainly appear promising: the vast majority of companies that took on the trial extended it, some permanently, reporting improvements in staff well-being and retention.   

Yorkshire organisations such as shipping company Jenkar have made the leap to a four-day working week and are currently advertising four day a week roles for five day a week pay rates.   

International shipping company Jenkar has been trialling a reduced week with their 45 staff. Director Karen Phillips said they were prompted to explore reducing people’s hours but not their pay as a way of supporting their team’s health and wellbeing.   

“It’s not been without its challenges, and we’ve had to work closely with our HR consultants to work out things like holiday and how to deal with Bank Holidays, but it’s been pretty well received.  

“We’re just starting our second three-month trial after the first one proved successful. The key has been not prescribing what that flexibility looks like, but handing control back to each team leader to arrange what works for their team. Communicating this so everyone knows we haven’t taken a one-size-fits-all approach has been part of the challenge, but we have definitely noticed improvements in people’s mental health and how energised they are at work.   

“It’s also helped in our recent recruitment. As a specialist shipping company but being based away from ports and the other traditional shipping centres it can be tricky for us to find the right people. Mentioning our reduced working week, which means our team work an effective 4.5 day week over four days, has gone down really well as a benefit and shows we are genuinely committed to having a happy and thriving team.”   

But is the four-day week really a magic bullet to solve work-life balance and create a happier, more productive workforce? I don’t think that’s always the case. 

The four-day week downsides 

Let’s consider the results of the trial. A small minority of companies involved chose not to continue beyond six months – and not all companies have made the arrangement permanent. Some didn’t even make it to the full six months of the trial, reporting that their employees were exhausted by the time they reached their ‘extra’ day off.   

And it’s not just the strain on the employees that can be an issue – there are operational and financial considerations too. While some companies might find the model an easy fit, for others needing a minimum staffing level on site – for example, manufacturing or customer facing businesses. Ensuring adequate staffing levels to maintain productivity might mean expanding the workforce – an expense too far for many, particularly in smaller firms.   

Trying to stick to a ‘shut down’ for all staff on a prescribed day, such as a Friday, can be almost impossible to achieve in reality for some organisations.  

While some businesses may find certain areas of their organisation an easy, productive and positive match to a four–day week – departments who were already working flexibly, for example – in other areas, the fit may be unfortunately unworkable.   

Keeping it flexible 

If you’re keen to adopt a more flexible approach to the working week, assessing which areas of your company might work well with the four-day a week model – and which won’t – can be helpful. One size does not necessarily fit all. Flexibility of approach at an organisational level is key. There are many options which might make a non-traditional working week a success for you and your organisation.   

• Splitting reduced hours across different days for different employees 
• Allowing employees to choose their ‘day off’ in a rota system 
• Shortening the working day rather than nominating one specific universal day off 

• Giving employees the choice of whether they want to shorten the week at all – some people miss the human connection of being at work across five days 
• Introducing a hybrid approach to homeworking  
• Introducing more part-time roles to access different talent to the organisation 
• Exploring job share options 

Talking to other people about their views on the potential pitfalls and benefits can be really insightful – but don’t forget – you can’t please everyone. One of the keys to making a four-day week work is, of course, how the people at the top of the organisation feel about the possibility of its success and having the right processes to manage, monitor and support it effectively.   

If presenteeism, for example, is an entrenched culture of the management, it’s going to be more difficult to make the case for a reduced working week. On the other hand, in a labour market where organisations are struggling to recruit, a more flexible approach to working could  be key to attracting and retaining the right sort of people to help grow the business.  

If you need want to explore your working week , email me to book a first free session.   

 Featured image courtesy of Unsplash – Elena Mozhvilo