4 days working week trial - AIBU?

[PanettoneMoly]

I think I might be but here goes…

Work are trialling a four day working week during August, email came out with the wording “you have all worked hard and we hope you enjoy the bonus time off”.

All well and good except I don’t work Fridays so am feeling a bit hard done by, missing out on bonus time off and also being paid 20% less of my salary for working the same hours as everyone else for a month.

I don’t know if I’m being a bit of a knob feeling sniffy about it, and should be grateful for the flexibility given to have Fridays off every month of the year, or whether my righteous annoyance is valid.

I may be missing the point but where is the work going to go?
We got some bonus days off last Christmas for working hard during the pandemic.
Except the work was still there, so we ended up having to work even harder...

As a four day part timer this is absolutely not on, I'd be taking this to HR.

Taken directly from the relevant piece of legislation:

“pro rata principle” means that where a comparable full-time worker receives or is entitled to receive pay or any other benefit, a part-time worker is to receive or be entitled to receive not less than the proportion of that pay or other benefit that the number of his weekly hours bears to the number of weekly hours of the comparable full-time worker.

Your full time colleagues have been given the added benefit of 4/5(?) extra paid days off, and the only reason that you haven’t is your part time status. You’re entitled to the pro rata equivalent and you’re within your rights to raise a formal grievance about it!

We recently reduced our employees hours per week from 38 to 36 and had to reduce our two part time workers hours by the same proportion.

This would drive me mad. You definitely have grounds to challenge it. Another option would be to ask to change your day off from a Friday to another day, and then you’d end up only working 3, the problem would be if they stop the 4 day week after august, you lose your Friday for a less preferable day.

Any update
op?

PWC I believe are doing this too for the summer. A friend is in their hr dept and has said that it’s a condensed work thing. So 5 days work in 4 and are working longer on the work days to make up the time. I think the staff can choose which day to take.

I only do 4 days a week too so I’d be a bit miffed if this happened in my place seeing as I don’t condense my week.

I'd agree with this. Her use of the term 'special treatment' is very flippant. This isn't special treatment. I'd perhaps put it in an email, she may respond differently via email, but surely she does need to clarify this with HR before just saying 'no'.

I think that one's fine and reasonable if everyone actually works their contracted hours, as the PT person would be leaving hours earlier than the full-time (it's quite hard to condense a full working week into four days and people might find it's not as amazing a deal as they thought it would be), so would retain their benefit in return for their reduced pay. Where it gets tricky is where people routinely work outside hours anyway - but then that's always a tough environment to go PT in.