Similar tests have been conducted in Spain, Iceland, the United States and Canada.
London, United Kingdom:
Louis Bloomsfield is inspecting a barrel of beer at his brewery in north London, looking forward to June, when he will receive an extra day off each week.
The 36-year-old brewer plans to use his time to get involved in charity, start a long-scheduled particle physics course and spend more time with his family.
He and his colleagues at Pressure Drop are on a six-month four-day trial with 3,000 others from 60 British companies.
The pilot, which is touted as the world’s largest, aims to help companies cut down on working hours without cutting wages or sacrificing revenue.
Similar tests have been conducted in Spain, Iceland, the United States and Canada. Australia and New Zealand are due to start in August.
Alex Sujung-Kim Pang, program manager at 4 Day Week Global, the campaign behind the test, said it would give companies “more time” to meet challenges, experiment with new practices and collect data.
Smaller organizations need to adapt more easily because they can make big changes easier, he told AFP.
Pressure Drop, based in Tottenham Hale, hopes the experiment will not only improve the productivity of their employees, but also their well-being.
At the same time, it will reduce their carbon footprint.
The Royal Biological Society, another participant in the process, says it wants to give employees “more autonomy in terms of time and work models”.
They both hope that a shorter working week can help them retain staff, at a time when businesses in the UK are facing severe staff shortages and job vacancies are reaching a record 1.3 million.
Not everything is pink
Pressure Drop co-founder Sam Smith said the new way of working would be a learning process.
“It will be difficult for a company like us to have to keep working all the time, but this is what we will experiment with in this experience,” he said.
Smith is considering giving different days off to his employees and splitting them into two teams to keep the brewery running at all times.
When Unilever tested a shorter work week for its 81 employees in New Zealand, it was able to do so only because the Auckland office does not produce and all staff work in sales or marketing.
The services industry plays a huge role in the UK economy, contributing 80 per cent to the country’s GDP.
Therefore, the shorter work week is easier to accept, said Jonathan Boyce, a labor economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
But for sectors such as retail, food and beverage, health and education, it is more problematic.
The boys said the biggest challenge would be how to measure productivity, especially in an economy where a lot of work is quality, as opposed to in a factory.
In fact, since salaries will remain the same in this experience, so as not to lose one company, employees will have to be as productive in four days as five.
Still, Aiden Harper, author of The Four-Day Week Case, said countries that work fewer hours tend to have higher productivity.
“Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands work fewer hours than the United Kingdom, but have higher levels of productivity,” he told AFP.
“Within Europe, Greece works more hours than anyone else and still has the lowest levels of productivity.”
“Hiring a superpower”
Employees in the UK work approximately 36.5 hours each week, compared to counterparts in Greece who work more than 40 hours, according to the database company Statista.
Phil McParlane, founder of Glasgow-based recruitment company 4dayweek.io, said offering a shorter work week was profitable and even called it a “hiring superpower.”
His company announces only a four-day week and flexible jobs.
They saw the number of companies wanting to hire through the platform rise from 30 to 120 in the last two years as many workers reconsidered their priorities and work-life balance during the pandemic.
(This story was not edited by NDTV staff and is automatically generated by a syndicated channel.)
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