This week, it was announced that 200 employers involved in the most recent pilot of a four-day work week have made the decision to permanently adopt the working model. Organisations including Melville Housing Association, Synergy Vision, Queercircle, AWO and Advice Cloud have now joined many others which adopted a four-day work week following previous pilots run by the 4 Day Week Foundation. Alongside those that have participated in a formal pilot scheme, are many other organisations that have implemented their own four-day week.
As employees increasingly look for greater flexibility to better balance their work and personal lives, a four-day work week is one way for employers to meet this desire. Research conducted among 61 organisations that participated in a four-day week pilot in 2022 by Professor Brendan Buchall of the University of Cambridge, and Dr David Frayne of the University of Salford for the Economic and Social Research Council-funded Digital Futures at Work Research Centre, found that 60% of the 3,000 participating employees said they found it easier to combine work with care responsibilities, while 62% found it easier to combine work and social lives.
In addition, two-thirds of participants reported lower levels of burnout, 40% reported fewer sleep difficulties and 39% lower levels of stress.
Personally, I’m a huge advocate for working in this way. I moved to a four-day work week upon returning from my first maternity leave and, more than five years later, have no regrets about doing so. Having a non-work day each week has enabled me to spend more time with each of my children in their pre-school years, which has been priceless to me. (It really is true when they say time goes so fast!)
Speaking to several people about this working model this week though, it became apparent that there are several key considerations employers must take into account when implementing a four-day work week. Firstly, if employers simply reduce employees’ hours without altering their expectations of achievement and output, there are concerns that trying to fit the same amount of work into a shorter timeframe could place staff under unnecessary additional pressure. This could lead to higher levels of stress and burnout, thus conflicting with many employers’ reasons for moving to a four-day week in the first place.
Of course, employers may find that employees are motivated to find more efficient or time saving ways of working in order to complete tasks during their new working hours. In my case, I also moved to a hybrid working pattern, before my role subsequently became fully remote, which helped greatly with time management.
How best to structure the working week will also be a key consideration for employers. While some will prefer to close the organisation for one working day each week, others may prefer to stagger employees’ non-work days in order to ensure someone is always available as a point of contact for customers. If opting for the latter model, employers should clearly set out expectations and boundaries around this. For example, employees should ensure they do not invite colleagues to meetings or schedule critical deadlines on days they are not due to be working.
Similarly, employers should watch for individuals regularly working on their scheduled non-work day. While this may be inevitable on the odd occasion, if an individual is regularly doing so this suggests the model may not be working as it should, or that an employee’s workload or time management needs to be addressed.
In five years’ time, more than two-thirds (68%) of working adults believe the four-day work week will be the norm, according to research conducted by Spark Market Research in autumn 2024. It will be interesting to see whether this prediction comes to fruition.
Debbie Lovewell-Tuck
Editor
@DebbieLovewell
