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.

I think a life working constant twelve hour shifts to make money for someone else is horrendous but not only that, you’re blinkered to the idea it could change. That makes it even worse.

Where are you getting this 'constant twelve hour shifts'? She said she usually works 10 hours and occasionally a couple more. Also that most of the labourers work 8-4 but that the managers often work a bit longer due to dealing with deliveries etc.

I also work in construction and the occasional long day is no worse than when I was in business development and regularly spending nights in hotels. At least I get back to my own bed, just a couple of hours later than usual.

I also agree it's a matter of perspective.

Somebody earning a nice executive salary for a 40 hour week won't see the attraction in working longer hours. However, somebody earning £25k doing a hard manual job 40 hours a week would probably bite your hand off for a £40k supervisor position where they work an extra couple hours a day but don't have to physically graft.

Some people seem so out of touch with the non corporate world!

@ColorMagicBarbie

I think a life working constant twelve hour shifts to make money for someone else is horrendous but not only that, you’re blinkered to the idea it could change. That makes it even worse.

Where are you getting this 'constant twelve hour shifts'? She said she usually works 10 hours and occasionally a couple more. Also that most of the labourers work 8-4 but that the managers often work a bit longer due to dealing with deliveries etc.

I also work in construction and the occasional long day is no worse than when I was in business development and regularly spending nights in hotels. At least I get back to my own bed, just a couple of hours later than usual.

No, Chaney said:

never less than 10 a day but quite often 11-12

I’ve since realised there’s nothing that can be done to change the plight of construction workers though.

@ColorMagicBarbie

I also agree it's a matter of perspective.

Somebody earning a nice executive salary for a 40 hour week won't see the attraction in working longer hours. However, somebody earning £25k doing a hard manual job 40 hours a week would probably bite your hand off for a £40k supervisor position where they work an extra couple hours a day but don't have to physically graft.

Some people seem so out of touch with the non corporate world!

Some people seem incapable of understanding a fairly simple concept: it’s not about getting a promotion from a manual job to a supervisor one. It’s about re-examining working practices to make improvements.

Trial a four day working week at what? I work full time but do two days in the office, the rest at home. Does this mean the government would force me to work less and get a 20% pay cut? I like my job as it is, thanks.

@HarebrightCedarmoon

Trial a four day working week at what? I work full time but do two days in the office, the rest at home. Does this mean the government would force me to work less and get a 20% pay cut? I like my job as it is, thanks.

No.

One of the best jobs I ever had was 4 days on / 4 days off. It came with an excellent salary increase, meant I had a nice balance of weekends and weekdays off, and you could take 4 days holiday for 12 days off. So I think a lot of retail / hospitality / public sector could implement that (anywhere open 7 days basically). If you had an event you could almost always get a swap with someone on the opposite shift.

Also I grew up with the Edinburgh times and never felt hard done by (neither do my kids?).

20 mins break (25mins on Fridays)
55 mins lunch

Done before 3pm weekdays and 12.30pm Fridays.

Every office job I've had in Edinburgh and the borders has had half-day Friday finish for Mon-Fri workers (I realise I'm very lucky but it's obviously not impossible to achieve).

I've hated the SNP more and more as the years have gone by but I'd be happy to see them trial this and see if there are ways of making this work. What we have right now doesn't seem that sustainable to me. And even if it was, 9 - 5 Monday - Friday should hardly be what we strive for?

It’s about re-examining working practices to make improvements. I think this is a great point and it's interesting to see how resistant people are to it - maybe it's because they think the SNP would make a mess of it? (Probably true) But I think the reluctance goes deeper than that and I can't work out what the root is.

HarebrightCedarmoon the suggestion is that you work a 4 day week but still take a full salary home.

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

Isn't everyone in Scotland, Wales, NI, NE, NW, Midlands etc subsidised by the people in the South East?

Who in turn get the majority of the investment because they are the ones subsidising the rest of us?

Is there anyone living outside of the South East who wouldn't like to see more investment so we can have a go at 'subsidise ourselves'?

It's not quite as simple as Scotland = Scroungers. I'm pretty sure if it was, we wouldn't have had every UK politician and their Aunty begging us not to leave. (And I say that as someone who will likely vote remain if there is ever another one).

All the nations of the UK should be funded the same, it's immoral that Scotland, and others, can make grandiose promises knowing that they won't have to pay for it.

They are. They're funded by the Barnett formula which is a % of what England chooses to spend on itself?

If England chooses to spend more, the rest of the nations get more. England chooses to spend less, the rest of the nations get less.

So all of our fates effectively lie with the 533/650 MPs England votes into Westminster.

Do you mean 'the same' as in we have 200X, so each nation gets a 4 way split of 50X? Or is there another way you'd personally prefer?

@Tailendofsummer

It’s about re-examining working practices to make improvements. I think this is a great point and it's interesting to see how resistant people are to it - maybe it's because they think the SNP would make a mess of it? (Probably true) But I think the reluctance goes deeper than that and I can't work out what the root is.

I think for me it's how employers afford it. So many are really struggling as it is at the moment that expecting them to cut hours without cutting pay just doesn't seem affordable. Costs would go up. Any additional costs a company has ultimately get passed on to the end consumer. A 4 day week is great if it works but it's not necessarily the number of days here that is being questioned, it's the fact that less hours but same pay and whether that's affordable. And if you are hourly paid how does it work? as in that scenario of course there would be a pay cut.

There have been suggestions on this thread about how it would work in the public sector - for example going on to 5 weekly bin collections etc to enable it. Ie cutting services.

I don't really see the relevance of the schools thing. It was talked about locally to me and it was explained that the hours of education for a child remains the same - just an earlier start time etc to make up for that Friday afternoon off. But from the point of this thread, it's not how long the kids are in school, it's whether the reduction in physical days per week impact how many hours a teacher works. And given that all non contact time is then taken as a lump on a Friday rather than scattered during the week I suspect there is no reduction in hours worked by a teacher.

Our local authority were honest enough to admit it was a cost cutting exercise though. If all non contact time is taken when kids were not in school then there would be less need for visiting teachers. So, again cuts. It maybe isn't how it works in Edinburgh, I don't know I don't live there. But certainly it's how the local authority said it would have worked if it had been implemented. There was strong opposition to it from teachers.

Our local authority were honest enough to admit it was a cost cutting exercise though. If all non contact time is taken when kids were not in school then there would be less need for visiting teachers. So, again cuts. It maybe isn't how it works in Edinburgh, I don't know I don't live there. But certainly it's how the local authority said it would have worked if it had been implemented. There was strong opposition to it from teachers.

That’s absolutely untrue, and I’d love to know which person in which local authority said that to you.

@Pumperthepumper

Our local authority were honest enough to admit it was a cost cutting exercise though. If all non contact time is taken when kids were not in school then there would be less need for visiting teachers. So, again cuts. It maybe isn't how it works in Edinburgh, I don't know I don't live there. But certainly it's how the local authority said it would have worked if it had been implemented. There was strong opposition to it from teachers.

That’s absolutely untrue, and I’d love to know which person in which local authority said that to you.

Well it was a meeting with the local authority and teachers/high teachers attended by a few hundred people.

And that's exactly how they said it would work and why.

It was strongly opposed and didn't go ahead.

Who within the local authority? In what capacity?

@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.

As a non independence supporting Scot living in Scotland, I hope to hell independence does not happen

I despair at the number of people whose votes are so easily bought by snp

I despair at the number of people whose votes are so easily bought by snp

As someone who agrees with your stances... I don't think it's as simple as that.

I live in a strongly pro-indy area and amongst friends and family, they're all utterly sick of them. But most will keep voting for them until Independence is gained.

I think the opposite is probably more true i.e: 'I despair at the number of people willing to put up with this train wreck in the name of independence'.

I'd hoped that with Alba it might have done something to split the vote a little... maybe next time?

BUT all of that said... I do believe a 4 day week should be what we're aiming for?

I think for me it's how employers afford it. So many are really struggling as it is at the moment that expecting them to cut hours without cutting pay just doesn't seem affordable. Costs would go up. Any additional costs a company has ultimately get passed on to the end consumer.

I think I agree that in roles where you couldn't actually gain any productivity (i.e a server in McDonalds can only serve 12 people per hour) then costs will go up.

But... is this necessarily a bad thing?

Lockdown has definitely made me think about this more.

What is more important... things or time?

Costs going up would mean less things, but isn't there an argument that might be better if it means we all have more time?

I could be totally off the mark with this... lockdown made me dream of saving every penny I have so I can buy an acre in the highlands and live in a hut away from things and pandemics and daily briefings 😂

@Pumperthepumper

Who within the local authority? In what capacity?

I'm not lying....

I can't remember the name, but several from the council were there as was several head teachers. Was a meeting to explain it all to parents. Would have been a couple of hundred there at the one I was at and I'm sure they held several to be open to as many parents as possible.
It was widely discussed in the press at the time and the teachers unions were also very vocal about it. Was all about cost cutting.

You can’t be right tigger as pumper disagrees with you!

www.tes.com/news/fierce-opposition-shortening-school-week

www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/fife/864050/fife-high-school-confirms-reduction-in-school-week-amid-budget-cuts/

I cut hours at my previous place and increased pay.

No effect on productivity whatsoever.

I did do a steady drive of system improvement, increasing automation and reducing duplication of tasks, but I was doing that over several years anyway.

(the point being not to replace humans with machines, buy to free them up to do the things humans are good at and computers aren't)

I also have zero tolerance for bullshit tasks, so one by one removed developments by previous staff that were just work for the sake of work, that didn't generate income or produce any staff satisfaction.

I also have zero tolerance for bullshit tasks, so one by one removed developments by previous staff that were just work for the sake of work, that didn't generate income or produce any staff satisfaction.

This sounds like heaven

I've worked in too many places where people were just adamantly resistant to change.

Some of it is the old 'Aye Been' attitude... it's always been that way so why change it? Can't change won't change why bother trying?

But I guess some of it comes from fear that any change is going to short change them out of a job.

I've seen entire teams of people (with daily meetings and calls) set up to deal with something that could be an algorithm on an excel spreadsheet. And I think everyone knew it was bullshit but it kept the whole team in a job where everyone felt comfortably busy.
But if there wasn't that fear there, that team could have done SO much more in terms of actual customer and product quality and service improvements, rather than bullshit tasks which allowed them to announce to management that one tiny cog in a massive system had been pulled in by 1 day. Might slip out again next week, but today that is a Win.

It's like... sacrificing what will look great in 2 years so something can look marginally better, or not worse, today.

Which is kinda what some of these responses put me in mind of

[quote Whycangirlsbesonasty]You can’t be right tigger as pumper disagrees with you!

www.tes.com/news/fierce-opposition-shortening-school-week[/quote]
Starting to think I imagined all the outcry at the time!

I was on the parent council at the time and it was the subject of many meetings! So if it was untrue, then a lot of people were misinformed. From local authority, head teachers and down. Or maybe we all just misunderstood?!

@tigger1001 I’m not suggesting you’re lying - I’m suggesting that your local authority looking at cutting the amount of visiting teachers as a positive is something you, as a parent, should be very angry about. I’m very surprised they were that candid.

[quote Whycangirlsbesonasty]You can’t be right tigger as pumper disagrees with you!

www.tes.com/news/fierce-opposition-shortening-school-week[/quote]
Do you want to tell us more about how it works in Edinburgh?

[quote Pumperthepumper]@tigger1001 I’m not suggesting you’re lying - I’m suggesting that your local authority looking at cutting the amount of visiting teachers as a positive is something you, as a parent, should be very angry about. I’m very surprised they were that candid.[/quote]
We were very angry - it didn't get through.

It was proposed in several different local authorities,

When you say something is absolutely not true - what does that mean if you didn't think I was lying? It absolutely was true.

We were also told that start times would be earlier and/or breaks and lunch cut to make up the time for pupils.