Dougal Sutherland: Is the UK's 4-day working week really a good thing?

Saturday Morning with Jack Tame

On the face of it the 4-day working week sounds like a good thing, but the devil is in the detail. Recently in the UK the government has indicated they may strengthen workers' rights to request this – however, it’s the right to request 40 hours compressed into 4 10 hour days, rather than 5 8-hour days. Although it might sound attractive at first, I’m not sure this is sustainable in the longer term, particularly for those who have family. If you include travel time, it could be that you end up being away from home from 7am – 7pm. Which would leave you Friday to recover and could ultimately lead to burnout.

A better option could be the 100/80/100 4-day working week: 100% of pay, 80% of time, 100% of productivity. Initially pioneered by NZ firm Perpetual Guardian and taken up by hundreds of organisations around the world – although interestingly very few in NZ.

It’s based on the idea that during a typical 5-day week there are only limited periods when we are productive – some estimate that it’s only about 30% of time. So, if we support people to be more focused and productive at work, we reward them with having to work less than they currently do. Global results are quite staggering:

- 25% increase in revenue

- 32% reduction in staff turnover

- 66% reduction in burnout

- 94% of organisations wanted to continue

It doesn’t involve everyone simply working 4 8-hour days – some people might work 5 days but shorter hours, some 3 days but longer hours. Every year the “deal” is put to workers – if we can keep productivity at 100%, we will pay you for 40 hours but you only have to work 32. If productivity drops, we go back to the 40-hour week. Great idea as it puts the solutions back into the hands of the staff who work in their own interests rather than having management dictate.

What can people do if they’re interested?

- Don’t buy into the idea that “it won’t work for us” —everyone says that— if your business needs to provide services 5 (or more) days per week then hand this problem over to the staff to figure out.

- Be prepared to do quite a bit of work beforehand e.g., how do you define productivity in your business, are you tracking people’s rates of burnout or wellbeing and if not, how will you do this?

- Likely to need some training too e.g., how to effectively run a meeting so that people’s time isn’t wasted.

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