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.

@ChaneySays In some respects people just get more done per hour because they are fresher.

For things like catering you adjust availability or hours of opening and service. So you get much less things like all day casual dining, cafes open from 6am til 10pm and narrower hours. So restaurants closed on quiet days like a Monday.

For catering/retail work it can mean things that people hate like split shifts, but it can also mean more part-time jobs that are family friendly for people with kids etc, or weekend jobs for students.

So for full-time people you basically have two crews. Each one does four days a week, and they overlap on busy days and also provide some cover for things like holidays for the other crew.

And you supplement the full-time crews with part-timers. That could be people working lunch shifts only from 10.30 til 2.30. Then full timers come in at 2, do prep at quiet times and work til 10pm. And you have weekend jobs for students, and part-time people who work say a couple of full days on days that suit them. There used to be lots of jobs like that- set part-time hours. Before zero hours contracts and total staff flexibility became the norm.

Those things would suit lots of people with young kids if they can work out a good pattern with their partner. Either they need one day a week child care from a family member or they work part-time in a job that suits them better and offers more stable hours.

Basically employers have to work more round staff needs and demand less flexibility from them.

@Musicaltheatremum it’s weird there isn’t more appetite for English independence isn’t it? What with the other countries of the UK being such a drain and all.

But let's not forget the possible ill effects on mental health and the isolation it might bring. I think proper risk assessment and a cautious approach is needed. Also let us not forget that working is the ultimate male privilege which we should aspire to rather than attempt to curtail.

@Whycangirlsbesonasty

Slacking off is if you have free time in your working day in which you are not working. If that is the case you could easily condense a 5 day working week into 4 days without there being work not performed at the end of those 4 days.

If people aren’t slacking off at any point they cannot do 5 days work in 4 days because there is too much work to do.

But surely the only reason people would get away with ‘slacking off’ is under poor management and an inefficient productivity structure?

@EYProvider

How on earth could any nursery find the funds to pays its staff for five days when all the parents were only paying for four?

It’s just not possible. How will it work?

I think a big part of the point of this is that overall less childcare will be needed.

Oops posted too soon!
If it does indeed increase productivity the company may soon realise that it doesn't need that many staff and fire people instead.
And it's not a question of 'middle class office workers'.
Where I work there's always more to be done. Cutting the number of in-office days just means that we'd rush more to meet the deadlines and end up working MORE in our 4 days a week.

Unless someone does a statistical study of everyone's jobs and concludes that many people are time wasters its impossible to say what the long term effects would be. How is productivity even measured for jobs with intangible output?

@TractorAndHeadphones

Oops posted too soon! If it does indeed increase productivity the company may soon realise that it doesn't need that many staff and fire people instead. And it's not a question of 'middle class office workers'. Where I work there's always more to be done. Cutting the number of in-office days just means that we'd rush more to meet the deadlines and end up working MORE in our 4 days a week.

Unless someone does a statistical study of everyone's jobs and concludes that many people are time wasters its impossible to say what the long term effects would be. How is productivity even measured for jobs with intangible output?

Because again, it wouldn’t suit every person under every sector.

It’s a reflection on the working-from-home practice many have had to adopt in the last couple of years. Some it will suit, others it won’t.

Will be interesting to see how a National company, with offices in England, Wales and Scotland deals with this.

[quote KintsugiCat]@ChaneySays In some respects people just get more done per hour because they are fresher.

For things like catering you adjust availability or hours of opening and service. So you get much less things like all day casual dining, cafes open from 6am til 10pm and narrower hours. So restaurants closed on quiet days like a Monday.

For catering/retail work it can mean things that people hate like split shifts, but it can also mean more part-time jobs that are family friendly for people with kids etc, or weekend jobs for students.

So for full-time people you basically have two crews. Each one does four days a week, and they overlap on busy days and also provide some cover for things like holidays for the other crew.

And you supplement the full-time crews with part-timers. That could be people working lunch shifts only from 10.30 til 2.30. Then full timers come in at 2, do prep at quiet times and work til 10pm. And you have weekend jobs for students, and part-time people who work say a couple of full days on days that suit them. There used to be lots of jobs like that- set part-time hours. Before zero hours contracts and total staff flexibility became the norm.

Those things would suit lots of people with young kids if they can work out a good pattern with their partner. Either they need one day a week child care from a family member or they work part-time in a job that suits them better and offers more stable hours.

Basically employers have to work more round staff needs and demand less flexibility from them.[/quote]
I can certainly see this working in some sectors, but not in things logistics, waste management, etc, which are already running flat out. But there is still logic in trying it where it works.

@ChaneySays The old way of making that kind of thing work was paying overtime at enhanced rates.

@Pumperthepumper yes, yes, you've said that multiple times. But for it to be a viable, long-term policy that becomes generally accepted practice it has to suit the majority of people.
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?

@KintsugiCat - Yes, I understand that, but if everyone is being paid for five days but working for four days, nursery staff will expect the same.

How will it work when parents will only pay for four days? Nurseries barely break even as it is.

*discipline

[quote KintsugiCat]@ChaneySays The old way of making that kind of thing work was paying overtime at enhanced rates.[/quote]
I can see it working with an optional fifth working day paid at higher rates (although where would the money come from?) but things like EU drivers hours, digital tacographs, and the WTD have seriously curtailed what is now possible in terms of hours worked.

[quote TractorAndHeadphones]**@Pumperthepumper* yes, yes, you've said that multiple times. But for it to be a viable, long-term* policy that becomes generally accepted practice it has to suit the majority of people.
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’ve said a few things multiple times, which one specifically are we talking about now?

And if you don’t get the same EY because your nursery can’t make it work, you’ll begrudge paying taxes to fund public sector workers on a 4 day week with 5 days pay.

@Whycangirlsbesonasty

And if you don’t get the same EY because your nursery can’t make it work, you’ll begrudge paying taxes to fund public sector workers on a 4 day week with 5 days pay.

Why? Any more than you do already?

@Whycangirlsbesonasty

And if you don’t get the same EY because your nursery can’t make it work, you’ll begrudge paying taxes to fund public sector workers on a 4 day week with 5 days pay.

You already pay taxes to send your kids to a school for 4.5 hours a day, remember?

*week

Wellcome trust we’re going to trial it and then gave up at the consultation stage. This is an organisation that is swimming in money and is largely office based. If they couldn’t make it work, not sure how other places would manage tbh.

@Pumperthepumper that it 'won't suit everyone across all sectors'.
Strangely you've avoided answering the main point of my post which tells me all that I need to know

[quote TractorAndHeadphones]@Pumperthepumper that it 'won't suit everyone across all sectors'.
Strangely you've avoided answering the main point of my post which tells me all that I need to know[/quote]
But if you already know that it won’t suit everyone across all sectors then surely that is the answer to your question?

Strangely you’ve avoided talking about the sectors it will work in, which tells me all that I need to know.

I was a teacher in Edinburgh in 1998 and the kids went home at 12.15. We however weren't allowed to leave as we had to do what was called Planned Activity Time all afternoon. The children started at 8.45 and this made sure that class contact hours were met.

@Clocktopus

Iceland successfully trialed it over a period of 3-4 years with no loss of productivity.

www.bbc.com/news/business-57724779

A trial is world's away from it being implemented and offered across the board. Its just a test run to see if it is viable and how could it work in practice.

See I don't mind it if it's what Iceland did, reduced hours for same pay. But I am not spreading my hours across 4 days and working longer days, that doesn't help my work life balance, it ruins it for those 4 days.

Sadly I think they will want it that way, not Icelands way. They can jog on if that's the case.

I work for a SG dept and we have never discussed the recent news reports that Scotland is going to trial this.
In the past our dept have asked for a 4 day working week in our pay negotiations but it's never actually came to anything.
The model which has been put forward from our dept is to drop from a 37.5 hour week to a 35 hour week which is condensed into 4 days, so basically cutting 2 and a half hours.
In my team we have clear evidence that part time staff are the higher outputted, so I would be glad to give this a shot.