Would you prefer this? (4 day working week)

[Frosty6611]

If you could have a longer working day mon-Thur (say 8am-6pm) but it meant you could have fri-Sun off work each week, would you prefer it?
Some European countries do it such as Norway and Denmark and its proven to be a huge success in lessening anxiety and depression.

It's exactly what I do - Monday off, longer days tues-friday. Suits me down to the ground.

Yes.

I’d be happy to do 12x3 to get four days off.

Great idea

I know lots of people who did this, initially to save on childcare costs but they have all maintained the pattern.

I'm self employed and love my Fridays off. It means I can do bits of training, see friends and generally just get a bit of head space. One Friday a month I lock the door and just have a long hot bath, totally undisturbed. Absolutely blissful indulgence!

@butchy haha even better! I’d much rather work my ass off for 3 days and then have 4 days to rest and enjoy family time

I would definitely prefer this. A whole extra day feels so much more worthwhile than a couple of hours each evening.

8-6pm is the absolute minimum I can get away with FIVE days a week, so yes that sounds great to me!

ShartGoblin

I know several people who do this, they all love it. My work doesn't allow compressed hours so I'm forced to go PT.

Yes, these are the hours that my husband and I both work.

Yes, I would definitely prefer this and often think that when I have kids I’ll try and do this as a working pattern

I do this and don't even have kids.

Ooh the cheek of it!

Would love this- however 9-6/ 8-6/ 8-5.30 is sadly becoming the norm!

My husband does this and it works great, I used to as well when I worked full time.
3x12.5 is horrible though, not at all worth it. It makes you so tired you spend the extra day recovering. You wouldn't think 2 hours would make much difference but oh it does!

I do longer days to reduce childcare.

I wanted to do this when I went back from maternity, sadly my employers at the time said no. But this is my ideal pattern and I'm currently going through a flexible working request at my current employers.

Depends on the job I did 12 hrs cleaning Monday and has taken me two days to get over it so total waste of my rest days. Back to 7.5hrs today hurrah

Yes. Once I'm at work I might as well stay there. Getting there and back is half the battle.

Yes - and think I'd pick the Monday off to help me enjoy Sunday properly.

My previous company offered this to all employees and almost everyone took up the offer. I really miss not having it. With the kids at school / nursery it was the one day I had some me time to catch up on household things, shopping and actually get to do the school run and have a chat with the nursery teachers.

Yes. It is great. I did this in my last job. I took the Monday off on the advice of another colleague who had previously done similar. This was before having children and taking the Friday off would have encouraged me to start my weekend early. E.g by going out on the Thursday night and wasting the extra time. Taking the Monday off really felt like an extra day that was a 'doing' day. I don't mean for just housework and life admin but going off and doing something constructive. It definately worked for me.

I've thought this in terms of young parents - so each works opposite 3 days. It would be flexible and kids would be cared for by both parents.
It could be reassessed when the children are at school (thereby allowing other parents the opportunity)

I used to do this. Loved it.

My company offers generous flexible working hours. The most common is to do a nine day fortnight but anything, within reason, goes. I'm part-time but I do 24 hours in 3 days (our working week is 35 hours full-time). Both of my DC will be in school from Sept so I'm really looking forward to having Monday and Friday for myself.

I’m looking at doing a 9 day fortnight. So just an extra 45mins a day, so that way I could actually just work 8-5 and still take a 45 minute lunch!

I have the Wednesday off - means I never work longer than 2 days . I love it .