Scotland to trial 4-day working week

[MyBadHabitsLeadToYou]

With no consequential pay reduction.

I couldn’t find a thread on this. Apologies if I have missed one.

I’m not sure what to make of this. I already work a four-day week (so that my four year old isn’t in full time nursery) and it’s a nice balance. But sometimes a bit stressful because my workload is heavy so it’s one less day in which to get things done. However, soooo many people are so overworked and stressed and it would be good for mental health etc.

But I’m not entirely clear on how this will work in practice e.g small private businesses. Twitter views are very mixed. How will it benefit retail staff etc, will it only benefit the office workers…

Just wondering what the consensus is.

@Pumperthepumper you're right, it won't work for everyone, it will work for for the comfortably off middle classes who have been able to work from home for the past 18 months.

@Pumperthepumper the issue isn't the 'sector' but how well run the workplace is.
For a generic 'office job', I copy and paste for your kind reference:
If people are already working efficiently enough that they have enough work to fill 5 days - cutting one day just makes the employer lose a day of work.
If people are slacking - as you mentioned it is due to poor management/slacking. A 4 day week won't improve productivity without management disciple.
So what's the productivity rationale?

It's not just about slacking though is it, I thought it was generally accepted that people are less productive on the last day if they work 5 days - not sure if it was 4 or 3 that was the most though.

@Popitdontstopit

It's not just about slacking though is it, I thought it was generally accepted that people are less productive on the last day if they work 5 days - not sure if it was 4 or 3 that was the most though.

How is 'productivity' defined though? In most of my previous jobs several years ago the pace of work was slower on Friday - but people used the time for larger department wide meetings, networking, training etc. Career talks for example mostly held on Friday. These help increase long-run productivity but not short term output.

In my current workplace (with many part-timers and flexible working even before Covid)many people are off/WFH on Friday/Monday. In the interests of fairness the above activities are held Tues-Thurs. But then you get low attendance because it competes with every other meeting for actual work - that everyone ELSE tries to squeeze in on these 3 days...

Of course just my anecdotal evidence.

The Scottish government are banning any more councils from dropping to a half day on Friday now though - well at least they were.

The Scottish government don’t have the power to do that.

It would be great for me, and possibly doable on paper for the office-based work I do.

However, our workload wouldn't change. The stuff we produce is already paid for, and we're contractually obligated to deliver it to our clients. Meanwhile, the directors allocating our individual workloads take the view that every single hour of our workday ought to be filled, which churns out a quota of documents (in theory) but leaves us little to no time for any innovation or projects that spring up out of nowhere (so, we all end up working unpaid overtime at home or run behind schedule). Getting the directors to even hire enough people to backfill positions was a struggle just a few years ago. I doubt they'd care if Scotland moved to a 4 day week: they'd expect the same workload from us regardless. It would not occur to them to hire even more people to keep the workload of a 4-day week manageable. They weren't even doing it for a 5-day week.

And in that sense, it was hard enough to juggle raising a young family on a 7-hour workday five days a week. A four-day week at my office would probably look like an 8.75-hour workday, which would inevitably bleed into 9 or 10 hours. Without the unpaid overtime creep that we already deal with.

When exactly would nursery start and finish with those working hours? My kids' nursery didn't open until 8:30 and closed before 6. It took at least 30 minutes to get between nursery and the office in traffic. I suppose the nursery could have opened longer hours. But then I'd have been dropping off kids who hadn't eaten breakfast and picking up kids who were too tired to eat their tea.

As for the financial side, I can't see this being feasible for most companies, even the cushy office-based ones, without a lot of taxpayer money propping up the costs of hiring more people despite corporate revenues staying the same.

Heard a discussion about this on the radio recently. Theres a campaign group trialling this and certain companies have signed up to it. One was a solicitors (I think) and some staff were allocated Mon to Thursday and others Tuesday to Friday. It was about being more efficient and productive in the shorter time but paid the same. Personally I would love it. I have a job that is largely office based but is terribly inefficient and if proper systems and technology were implemented it could work, but unfortunately our management structure dont want to change anything because they're happy in their world and dont care about efficiency for the workers, obviously we aren't the private sector.

Iceland is a bigger island than the UK with only around 300000 people and their industries are different

You can't really compare

[quote TractorAndHeadphones]@Pumperthepumper the issue isn't the 'sector' but how well run the workplace is.
For a generic 'office job', I copy and paste for your kind reference:
If people are already working efficiently enough that they have enough work to fill 5 days - cutting one day just makes the employer lose a day of work.
If people are slacking - as you mentioned it is due to poor management/slacking. A 4 day week won't improve productivity without management disciple.
So what's the productivity rationale?[/quote]
I think it would encourage a lot of sectors to look at their business model. But I’m not really sure how I can answer this aside from: it won’t work for everyone.

It never occurred to me to imagine getting paid the same for 4 days as for 5, unless I was working longer days so that on a weekly basis my hours remained the same. Anything else is bizarre and unworkable.

@Littlescottiedog

Well I doubt it'll benefit retail, NHS or education staff. So yes, it'll just be office workers I imagine.

It will just be people who work for the Scottish government or local Councils.

Because private companies know the SNP are away with the fairies and their wee pals in the Greens are even worse, and will know that in order to, you know, make a profit and offer a service, they need staff in every day of the week.

And that providing 100% of the salary for 80% of the work just doesn't make sense.

This is what happens when you have people in charge of the country who have never had a job other than being a politician.

@ICouldHaveCheckedFirst

It never occurred to me to imagine getting paid the same for 4 days as for 5, unless I was working longer days so that on a weekly basis my hours remained the same. Anything else is bizarre and unworkable.

It’s not really bizarre and unworkable, loads of countries have been doing it for years. And I’d say you’re very unusual if you’ve never been in a meeting that was a waste of time, or had an idea about how to make part of your work more efficient.

And that providing 100% of the salary for 80% of the work just doesn't make sense.

It’s not 80% of the work though. I’m actually begging you, please do look this up before you have a conversation with someone in real life, I’m genuinely worried that a lot of you are going to really embarrass yourselves with how little of this you understand.

@SofiaMichelle

Jesus wept.

Is there no end to what The SNP will try to do to bribe the population into voting for independence.

It's completely and utterly unaffordable. Scotland is already subsidised by England due tho the Barnett formula.

I sincerely hope they do gain independence before they sink the entire UK.

Hahaha oh do be quiet

@Pumperthepumper which countries (by that I presume that the majority of employers have been doing it for at least 2 years) are those?

Also work being made more efficient usually means that people fill their time with higher value work - not that they have less work and so can do it in 4 days instead of 5.

That’s why productivity measures are misleading.

[quote TractorAndHeadphones]@Pumperthepumper which countries (by that I presume that the majority of employers have been doing it for at least 2 years) are those?

Also work being made more efficient usually means that people fill their time with higher value work - not that they have less work and so can do it in 4 days instead of 5.

That’s why productivity measures are misleading.[/quote]
I’m flattered that you see me as some kind of Q&A for the government.

Iceland and France spring to mind but I guess that’s something you can google yourself.

I did this when I worked for the NHS. I did three long days. I think the shifts were 13.5 hours long. The only difference was that they reserved the right to change this if the service needed to and it wasn’t a fixed thing. They were pretty long days.

It clearly won't work in many jobs and industries. But it can work in many.

The Unilever trial in New Zealand was totally different to the trial done in Iceland. And the Microsoft 4 day week in Japan did have good productivity results, but there were issues.

@Wheresmybiscuit3

I did this when I worked for the NHS. I did three long days. I think the shifts were 13.5 hours long. The only difference was that they reserved the right to change this if the service needed to and it wasn’t a fixed thing. They were pretty long days.

But they're not proposing compressed hours, as you're describing, just fewer hours.

So a 32 hour week instead of 40, for example, for the same weekly pay - i.e. a 25% increase on hourly pay.

@Pumperthepumper no, I see you as someone who doesn’t do their research and google proves it. If you only you followed your own advice…
France is a 35 hour work week ; many, many people work far longer hours than legally mandated.
Iceland is similar.
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/100293538

For the record - I’m not against the idea of people working less. In fact many people where I work already do. What I’m saying is that the legal ‘number of hours worked’ is a red herring. Work-life balance relates to how well a business is managed, how much they value their employees, and respect for employee rights. Putting a 4-day week in place in isolation solves nothing.

[quote TractorAndHeadphones]@Pumperthepumper no, I see you as someone who doesn’t do their research and google proves it. If you only you followed your own advice…
France is a 35 hour work week ; many, many people work far longer hours than legally mandated.
Iceland is similar.
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/100293538

For the record - I’m not against the idea of people working less. In fact many people where I work already do. What I’m saying is that the legal ‘number of hours worked’ is a red herring. Work-life balance relates to how well a business is managed, how much they value their employees, and respect for employee rights. Putting a 4-day week in place in isolation solves nothing.[/quote]
I don’t understand why you expected me to look the answer up for you?

I’ve said many times, I’m not an expert. I’ve said many times it wouldn’t work for every sector. I’ve said many times it would probably mean a lot of workplaces re-designing their working habits.

@SofiaMichelle are they? I thought they were just proposing compressing the same hours into fewer days.

I’d love to get paid the same rate for less hours. Except I’m now self employed so that won’t happen for me. Happy for those it will work for though!

@SofiaMichelle

Jesus wept.

Is there no end to what The SNP will try to do to bribe the population into voting for independence.

It's completely and utterly unaffordable. Scotland is already subsidised by England due tho the Barnett formula.

I sincerely hope they do gain independence before they sink the entire UK.

Not again! Why do we have to pay for Scottish benefits? I am starting to warm up to their independence. When can I vote for it? Living in England, South East

@letmethinkaboutitfornow you can start your own campaign for English independence? Nobody is stopping you.

@Pumperthepumper: the trials in Iceland did not result in 4 day weeks. I'll find a link in a minute.

My last job involved introducing leaner work practices, so I do have some understanding of how complex it can be.