4 day week

[Fandangoes]

Apologies if someone has already started a thread about this, I did check but couldn't see one.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a good work / life balance but how on earth can SNP promise to introduce a 4 day working week for everyone, on the same pay and expect private businesses to accommodate that? Especially when so many businesses are fighting to survive coming out of this pandemic.

How is this supposed to work?

The bigger problems, by far, for the NHS currently is:

• large numbers of staff off sick with long covid
• large numbers off sick with MH issues
• large numbers off sick with general stress
• large numbers considering retiring

Burnout and stress drives people to leave entirely, which is far more of an issue than reducing working hours slightly (notwthstanding the fact many surgeons work over their contracted hours anyway, and often only a proportion in the NHS as they do private work)

If you could cut sickness and improve retention sufficiently particularly amongst nurses, I can easily imagine how the sums stack up.

Four day week is fine as long as it is the same pro rata salary. Say I was a surveyor and I could do one site visit and one report a day, do you really expect my director to pay me the same for less output?
I fully support flexible working but this is not the same. I would be happy to be paid the pro rata amount for working 4 days, but not my current salary. If I’m happy with 5 days, why would I need to change?

@Fancyfencepost

Four day week is fine as long as it is the same pro rata salary. Say I was a surveyor and I could do one site visit and one report a day, do you really expect my director to pay me the same for less output? I fully support flexible working but this is not the same. I would be happy to be paid the pro rata amount for working 4 days, but not my current salary. If I’m happy with 5 days, why would I need to change?

I think you would be allowed to do the extra hours for free if you wished to

But surely if you were offered the same salary for reduced hours it wouldn't upset you?

I guess this is why there is to be a trial, so that variables like this can be investigated.

But why would someone pay me for 4 reports a week, when a sit surveyor from Carlisle can do the same job 5 days a week for the same salary , bye bye Glasgow office!

Site even....

@Fancyfencepost

But why would someone pay me for 4 reports a week, when a sit surveyor from Carlisle can do the same job 5 days a week for the same salary , bye bye Glasgow office!

Again, these are the same arguments with every single working condition improvement since the start of the industrial revolution.

I guess we either stick with what we have, or have a trial, or try it wholesale.

But we don’t need a trial to see that it is completely non-viable for a large % of the workforce - in the format they suggest. I suspect you work in an environment where it would work and can’t see past that.
Yet again it would be the lowest paid that would lose out with this policy. And women who would struggle to work longer days due to childcare because unfortunately childcare still seems to fall heaviest on women. Where is the life / family quality in working longer days. Why should this be forced on people that don’t want it.

Flexible working arrangements give people choice - that is where true progress lies

Actually flexible working arrangements only give some people choice - they give a lot of power to employers and are very unfairly applied.

And as an aside - it may be that you work in a field where this wouldn't work and can't see past that! Don't assume you can see more clearly than anyone else.

There is no argument being made on this thread that wasn;t made every time more holidays, or maternity leave, or reduced working week etc was proposed before.

Last time I looked we didn’t have a solid manufacturing base, the Scottish government didn’t exactly support bi-fab, and with so many jobs being able to be done remotely, or without being based in Scotland, how does that work?
You haven’t said how you stop jobs being moved from Glasgow (other cities are available) to other parts of the UK? Can you explain how Scotland will keep the work here?

@Fandangoes

But we don’t need a trial to see that it is completely non-viable for a large % of the workforce - in the format they suggest. I suspect you work in an environment where it would work and can’t see past that. Yet again it would be the lowest paid that would lose out with this policy. And women who would struggle to work longer days due to childcare because unfortunately childcare still seems to fall heaviest on women. Where is the life / family quality in working longer days. Why should this be forced on people that don’t want it.

Flexible working arrangements give people choice - that is where true progress lies

They're not proposing working the same hours. Spain are trialing this too. It's very interesting.

I absolutely do work in a field where it could be done. I am also responsible for agreeing to many of our staff working flexible hours that involve delayed starts to accommodate school runs. Condensed hours to reduce child care costs, 4 day weeks for those that want it etc.
This is why I said the govt would do better to make sure the flexible working legislation is put into practice properly by ALL employers. If you want to work a 4 day week have you asked your employer to do so? Have you been refused?

Flexible working done properly is much fairer for far more people than a 4 day working week which is just not viable for too many industries in the current clinate

Agree with the flexible working arrangements. That way, whilst not everyone can get the same, they can introduce an element of fairness into most jobs that gives everyone something.

That was the philosophy of my ex boss who was faced with staff all on different contracts due to tupe from different companies as well as direct hires. Some had flexi time systems, some could buy extra holidays etc. He said that it's not in his gift to have everyone equal but where he could give people things he would. So via that, I changed my part time 5 day week to a 9 day fortnight. Everything else remains the same but it makes up for me not having flexi.

They could encourage employers to offer home working and flexible hours on a more permanent basis for staff where this works, or compressed weeks for others, or the ability to buy more holidays, or less but longer shifts or whatever they can that works for the business and the staff.

A lot of people have had a big shift in the way they work due to covid restrictions and others have had virtually none. It makes sense for businesses to share what has worked well in their industry and for some investigations and encouragement for those less flexible businesses to see if any changes could be made to their business model.

I think that could be done for less than £10m.

@Fandangoes you have articulated it perfectly.

Totally agree Redacted. I am also looking to bring in a buy / sell holiday scheme at work so that people can make that work for them too. Employment legislation covers so many topics it would not have been difficult to shore up what is already there to give people a better work/ life balance. I am all for that I just don’t think a 4 day working week for all is a) realistic b) the best solution. C) cost effective use of govt money

According to this organisation mental illness alone costs Scottish businesses £2billion a year, perhaps the costs of the trial do stack up. www.seemescotland.org/workplace/see-me-in-work/step-1-sign-up/cost-calculator/

Stop trotting the same rubbish excuses out! How does a 4 day week for the select small proportion of people that work in a job that can reduce hours without affecting productivity / income help enough people’s mental health?

So I already work a four day week and my salary is pro-rated at 0.8 FTE. Would this policy mean mean that I, and every other existing part-time worker, gets a proportional pay rise? I'm not against that at all, but it seems a big cost for businesses emerging from an economically devastating global pandemic.

Do we have enough teachers and health professionals already trained and available to fill the extra jobs that will be needed? Will taxes increase to cover the cost of the extra public sector wages bill?

Will there be an increase in the national living wave so that someone on hourly pay will earn the same weekly or monthly wages doing 80% of the hours they normally work?

It would be good to get answers to these questions this side of the election.

Just to try and circumvent some of the hysteria on this thread - this is a trial and not a manifesto promise. It's not a done deal is it?

Other countries and companies are also trialling. Clearly some folk think it's a good idea. What's the harm in a bit of testing the water?

I bet 18 months ago people would have scoffed at the idea of so many working from home. That has suited some people a lot better and some people's working lives have been changed forever.

The idea of a five day working week was invented by someone arbitrarily in the first place. It's not like it's part of our DNA ffs.

Yeah what’s another £10m added on to all the other failed business schemes the snp have put through?
I still don’t understand why the govt has to provide £10m to support this if it will actually increase productivity

A reduced working week is very likely to come at some point, and yes I'd like more flexibility too, but I can't see the basic work week staying the same long term and I can't see the basic week getting longer. Progress happens.

Major automation is ahead of us, this is a very small and overall positive change in comparison to what is coming. People always fear change - not long ago the minimum wage was going to be the death of business.

It'll be interesting to see how it develops over the next five-ten years.

These are the exact same arguments that have been made every single time there is a working hours cut.
They said the same when the very first holiday pay was introduced.
Always the same arguments.

"Research has shown that the average age at which children started work in early 19th-century Britain was 10 years old, but that this varied widely between regions. In industrial areas, children started work on average at eight and a half years old."
from: www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/child-labour#

I'll bet you at the time there were people resisting attempts to stop children working in mines, factories, up chimneys... "Can't be done!" "The economy will collapse!", "I'll be not quite as well off as I am now!"...

This is one of these ideas where everyone says

“ Great - I’d like to work fewer hours for the same pay . However I’d like all the services I personally use to be available 7 days / when I want them AND I don’t want to pay 20% more for them “.

Much like the people screaming “ close all childcare and everyone stay at home “ during the pandemic. While still expecting everyone in retail / transport / utilities / NHS/carers / police / fire / insurances / energy / council staff / tradespeople to be at work to meet their needs.

Oh for goodness sake! It’s not about resisting change it’s about being able to bring in change that benefits as many people as possible, putting resources in the right places.
We need companies paying real living wages, real flexible working policies to suit individual lifestyles and a social care system to support those that can’t work at all.
A reduced working week is not the answer to that - like a PP said, that will just be like the 48hour maximum working regs.

I notice none of the posters defending this 4 day week have answered my question whether they have actually asked their employer if they can work a 4 day week. If that’s what you want to do and you the industry you work can support it you should be able to put your case forward without a problem. What I suspect is the issue really is that you don’t want to take the corresponding pay cut that would currently be expected.