To think this is a surefire way to insist that everyone comes back into the office?

[Pleasebeafleabite]

Latest BBC News link today. If I was an employer and I was forced into giving staff compulsory four day weeks based on compressed hours, I’m be making sure they were doing them in the office.

Yet more unintended consequences

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gl5w83z7do

You sound like you don't approve of it? 4 day weeks are great, more leisure time and less commuting, what's not to like?

Are you an employer? I hope you pay well as a lot of your employees may well decide to vote with their feet.

Being in the office doesn't mean working harder. You lose time to commuting and office chat.

I’m not sure I understand your point? Why would employers make those working four day weeks go to the office? Out of spite?

I’ve worked at a couple of places where these type of compressed hours are offered and it hasn’t been a problem, or led to the sort of outcome you describe.

Being in the office and working harder don't necessarily correlate.

I get much more done at home than I do on office days.

I would not give up my work/life balance. Imo it should have always been this way.

They’re still working their full hours.

My fear is more the unintended consequences of normalising a very long day.

So employers get used to the very long days worked over 4 days and then some people do 5... Then 5days at long hours become the norm and those doifnb4 days are rebranded as part time.

I am a team manager. I have worked for a long time though now and I think that, whilst people genuinely think they work their hours in their heads, most the time they don’t really.

Compressing five days into four typically means people working nearly 9 hours a day. How many will realistically do those hours?

I work harder at home than in office when I’m chatting to colleagues!

I used to do compressed hours and hated it . The four days were very long, which was a nightmare with childcare/school. I spent the 5th day catching up on all the household stuff I was too tired to do on working days so nothing gained.

Why? If you don’t trust your staff then ok but my employer knows I work my hours and get my work done.

Working a full time job across four days necessarily means longer days, so works best for those who can WFH.

IF the proposal turns into reality, it only means employees can request to compress hours. I’m sure employers will be able to refuse if it doesn’t fit business needs, the same as they don’t HAVE to accept every flexible working request now.

Why would you insist on that? We are all encourage to do a 9 day fortnight, way before covid. About half the team do. Post covid we returned to the office 2 days a week then a year then just one after a year. Nobody is allowed to have their compressed day off be the day we are in the office is the only stipulation.

Works fine.

Oh, you’re one of those managers.

Not everyone has an office.

Not everyone wants to work compressed hours, this article isn't showing it would be compulsory, it's an amendment to flexible working requests.

Working in an office isn't productive for everyone, and working from home can make work more accessible for a lot of people.

I hope you're not a manager. A puritan work ethic doesn't make you any better than anyone else.

I did. 3 day weekend was absolutely amazing from practical and wlb point, and I was actually surprised even by myself at how productive I was compared to 5 day week. Because everything home was sorted AND I got rest as well

Honestly I was doing more than that when we were working 100% at home on five days a week. Now, no. I’m trying to be strict but there’s always an email that comes in five minutes before I’m due to log off that will take longer than five minutes to deal with.
I definitely don’t do ‘my hours’ in the office. There’s always someone to talk to

Reading the Telegraph article it shifts the balance of powers in favour of the employee rather than the employer. So it has to be offered by employers unless “not reasonably feasible”

Whatever that means

If you've been a team manager for a long time, how much have you changed your working style and approach for the team members that work remotely?

In my experience, it is team managers that have managed for years that are finding the shift to WFH the hardest. As their role has changed significantly, usually without any additional training or support from the business.

Part of it is being obsessed with people "doing their hours" that isn't a tool that can be used to judge employee performance anymore. It needs to come from output quality and other things that are harder to measure.

But no, I don't agree that compressed hours = back to office. My (very old fashioned industry) company offers extensive WFH and compressed hours and flexible working combinations. As a company, we had exceeded our business kpis by January last year. It can be done with effective employees at all levels

They might not work exactly the hours but will they get the job done?

Over four days you might find them more productive, enthusiastic, less likely to take sick leave and all around more committed to the job.

Your commute isn't part of your working hours though.

For what it's worth I think that allowing people to demand condensed working as part of the four day week is great - stops employers just cutting people's hours by 20% and therefore their pay as well

Eh?? 9 hours is a completely normal work day 😵‍💫

If I was an employer and I was forced into giving staff compulsory four day weeks based on compressed hours, I’m be making sure they were doing them in the office.

Why? Whats the difference between wfh 9-5 and wfh say 8-6?

The company I work for is fully WFH for every member of staff. I WFH pre covid so nothing new to me. There are offices for those who want to go in and I go in once a month.

It’s quite easy to see who’s delivering based on output. My employer doesn’t mind if I do the school run or run errands etc - I get my work done and more.

My partner worked for a company that preferred people in office - it gave team managers something to do and an air of importance to strut around their teams working. His company then realised they didn’t need as many managers and the staff are all now WFH.

This. I worked for a large employer who offered this. I only knew one person who tried it, and she gave it up after a few months as she was just shattered and doing nothing after work on her compressed hours days. And she didn’t even have kids.

Compressed hours is crap.

There are employers who’ve moved staff to four days just by getting rid of all the useless time wasting stuff their staff used to have to do, so they can fit their work into a normal hours four day week. That sounds good. My
current employer wastes loads of time on time wasting crap.