Majority of companies on four-day week trial extend changes to working hours

The vast majority of companies involved in a six-month four-day working week trial have chosen to continue with the changes, with 18 of the firms involved deciding to make the new work schedule permanent.

A total of 56 out of the 61 companies taking part in the UK-wide trial, which began in June, have extended the changes to working hours. Workers taking part in the pilot received 100% of their salary while working 80% of their previous hours.

About 2,900 people were involved in the trial, which was run by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with the think tank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week campaign and researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College.

Launching the trial, lead researcher Juliet Schor described the scheme as “historic”, and explained that her team would be analysing “how employees respond to having an extra day off, in terms of stress and burnout, job and life satisfaction, health, sleep, energy use, travel and many other aspects of life”.

Surveys of staff who participated in the pilot scheme found that 39% said they were less stressed, 40% were sleeping better and 54% found it easier to balance work and home responsibilities.

The number of sick days taken during the trial dropped by around two-thirds. The period of the trial also saw 57% fewer staff leaving the firms taking part compared with the same period in the previous year.

4 Day Week Campaign director Joe Ryle said the results of the pilot were a “major breakthrough moment”, adding:  “Across a wide variety of sectors, wellbeing has improved dramatically for staff and business productivity has either been maintained or improved in nearly every case.

“We’re really pleased with the results and hopefully it does show that the time to roll out a four-day week more widely has surely come.”

Asked in June what Labour’s current stance is on the four-day week, a spokesperson told LabourList: “The next Labour government will deliver a new deal for working people, giving all workers both the right to flexible working from day one as a default and the right to switch off outside of working hours.

“Our package of reforms will build an economy based on fair pay, job security, dignity and equality at work that improves the work-life balance of working families.”

A four-day week was part of Labour’s platform at the 2019 general election. Then Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said a Labour government would “reduce the average full-time working week to 32 hours within the next decade” and argued that “the link between increasing productivity and expanded free time has been broken”.

Rachel Reeves argued in February 2020 before becoming Shadow Chancellor that the four-day week pledge in the 2019 election manifesto “misunderstood the concerns of working people”.

“On one hand, it seemed to be utopian and unrealistic, but on the other it sounded hostile to the interested of workers who want a guarantee of more hours and a higher wage, not a cap on work,” Reeves wrote.

At Scottish Labour conference over the weekend, delegates passed a motion in favour of the four-day week. The motion, proposed by Edinburgh Central Constituency Labour Party, saw conference resolve to support the launch of a government-led four-day week trial in Scotland’s public sector.

The motion also included a commitment for conference to support companies and organisations in the private sector in Scotland with the transition to a four-day, 32-hour working week with no loss of pay.