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

Yep, OP hasn't taken this into account at all. Premises are expensive! It just cannot be assumed that organisations will have the desk space to bring people in 4 days a week. This was already happening well before covid, as it was part of the public sector austerity drive in the 2010s. And of course the events of the 2020s have meant even more employers won't have found it a justifiable expense to retain premises that house everyone.

I worked with with somebody who did 36hours over 4 and it was fine. People doing the same hours over 5 days did days of 9 or 10 hours on a regular basis.

And who looks after the kids when he has taken time to go collect them?

Did you miss the bit where I said he still has 45 mins left of his lunch break? It’s irrelevant though, the latest I’m home is 3:40 pm (I’m p/t) so I’m back before he’s finished lunch. My dc are going into yr 5 & 6 so they are capable of playing in the garden unattended etc but I take them to sports/friends etc.

I run a charity and we’re WFH, productivity is great, we had one bad egg, we got rid of her. I’ve worked in office based teams that are unproductive. If anyone asks for abnormal hours I let them have them, this wouldn’t bother me at all. You can’t manage WFH teams on hours done, if they get a weeks work done I’m not bothered the exact hours if they are there for meetings. Block your diary for school pick ups, yoga classes etc. you work to live not live to work. I’ve not had a resignation in 4 years and we’ve quadrupled income. Last couple of posts we had about 100 applicants each time.

My colleagues work full time, part time, compressed hours, hybrid, homeworkers and some term time only. I am always clear whether someone is part time or compressed. If working a longer day, that gives flexibility in allocating fast turn around work, where someone else would need to work late.

In your opening post you said:
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.
That reads to me that would be a decision made by you not an employer 🤷‍♀️

You are employing the wrong people! I'm employed to work 7 hours a day. That is the minimum i work, i work 8 to 9 hours every day for no overtime or extra pay, simply to do a good job and make sure I hit my targets. I'm in a professional career and considered a top performing person. You need to inspire your team more or make it a better place to work and then people will happily give it their all and not just the minimum

Ummm don't lots of employers already do compressed hours?

Exactly & DH was hybrid before Covid, completely normal for many companies.

Nah he is still doing childcare in working hours, if he was in the office you would have to pay for childcare. I presume you do in the summer holidays and half term? Or does he just let them play in garden when he works?

There has been mention of productivity on here.

My view is that in a lot of places poor management is to blame for a lot of staff unhappiness, and poor productivity. In places I have worked I see so many incompetent managers who have no idea how to motivate or manage staff and shouldn’t be in their role.

Usual excuses… I don’t like conflict. Conflict management is part of the role. Performance management is part of the role. Nipping things in the bud and dealing with them instead of letting them fester is part of the role. Dealing with individuals instead of blanket ‘punishments’ is part of the role. Increasing morale and creating a positive working environment is part of the role.

If you can’t be arsed to do what the role entails then don’t do it. And yes I have been a (successful) manager before. It’s hard work but I knew that it came with the territory.

If you can’t do this, where your staff work is completely irrelevant.

Eh?? 9 hours is a completely normal work day

Its not typical though

“According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the average weekly hours for full-time work are 36.6 as of the first quarter of 2022.”

People like you would be well suited to these sorts of arrangements as it sounds like you're a self starter and self motivated but some aren't. So how to offer such schemes to people like you but not others.
For example the civil servants at DVLA when they started to "work" from home ended up taking nearly two years to issue provisional licenses etc. Just imagine if they had the choice of a 4 day week on top of that shambles.

I am definitely more productive on my WFH days as evidenced by my timesheets - average chargeable time on office days is 4 hours whereas it's 6 hours on WFH days.

This is partly due to no interruptions but also because I'm very conscious that I don't want bosses to think I'm slacking at home but on WFH days I can do things like get my hair/nails done/do housework/get out for a walk in my lunch hour etc, reschedule my lunch to take my mum to any appointments, start & finish early/later & as long as my diary is up to date with my availability & the work is getting done no one cares I can't do that on office days as I am out of the house from 8am to 6pm.

I have a task on my list today that needs to be returned to the client by 8am on Monday morning - if I do that today or log on & do it on Sunday afternoon it's not an issue.

Flexibility works both ways & I am mostly in credit with mine but do agree there's a fine line between flexibility & taking the piss & some people do take the piss.

I'm 46 this year & eventually want to compress my hours to 4.5 days by the time I'm 50, then 4 days by the time I'm 55 with a view to dropping to a standard hours 4 day week at 60.

I personally are far more productive WFH. But there are 6 of us in our team and I can say 4 do not pull their weight at work. Me and the other person carry the load and the boss knows and the boss allows it.

As long as the 4 day week/compressed hours is a choice and not the norm. Some people's family circumstances mean they cannot work long days. Many nurseries and after school care are not open late enough for someone finishing after 6, even if their commute is only 20 minutes. As usual this will affect women the most.

If people have hobbies or sports they do in early evenings, or take their children to, they wouldn't be able to make any more except the 1 day they're off

So worse yet again for people that work outside the home in jobs that can't WFH.

I know that MN thinks these people deserve it as they could better themselves.

You need to sort out your priorities.

Your obituary won't include that nonsense.

If it was my business I would increase office days, yes. That’s taking into account a full range of teams across a very varied business. In our customer service teams we could see that productivity dropped during Covid

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

9 hour days is quite normal for many people - 5 days a week.

I've always been far more productive when wfh than in the office. Just because someone is sat in the office it doesn't mean they're actually working hard. As a manager you need to be able to monitor output rather than time spent at a desk wherever your team members are based.

At the moment some people work compressed hours either in the office or from home and it can be standard within teams and fields of work. For a lot of people the extra hours come from commute times and in some high functioning teams high trust is accepted. I have worked in teams where Friday afternoons are regularly swapped out for Sunday morning or evening. This can be facilitated by moving collaborative working to other days of the week.

I am sure it can be applied and adapted for many more environments. I can’t be arsed with the need to manage productivity through presenteeism. Anyone who slacks at home slacks in the office. Which a good and competent manager will be able to measure either way.

So you as a manager saw productivity dropped, so what did YOU do about it?

Every time I hear about the four day week, I just wonder what happens with nurses, doctors, teachers, fire-fighters, shop workers... would t you need proportionally loads more of all of them? The percentage of people who have a corporate office job must be fairly small, no?

I have just been in the workplace for 30 years and seen all the tricks pulled by managers with views like yours. Seen people work like buggery and get promised the world then get shat on and made redundant. So I am a little world of work weary.

But yeah, I'm also a leftie 😂

I think you are very foolish OP.

My soon to be ex-boss recently tried to insist that we all return to the office 4 days a week despite having remote contracts. I got the first job I applied for and will be wfh 4 days a week. I'm just not prepared to waste my time & money, and pollute the air to satisfy an ineffective manager.

My no. 2 has checked that I'll give him a great reference, so he's off too. The sales team has dropped to one.

If you aren't happy that enough work is getting done, you need to change your management style, rather than expect people to sacrifice their family time commuting unnecessarily.

It's on you !