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UK firms make four-day workweek permanent after world’s biggest trial

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/12307563

A UK study shows work intensity remains lower and job satisfaction is higher during a four-day workweek.

The majority of companies in the United Kingdom that took part in the world’s largest study trialling a four-day workweek have made the policy permanent, with 100 per cent of managers and CEOs saying it had a “positive” impact on the organisation.

Some 61 organisations took part in the six-month pilot in 2022. The trial results were announced on Thursday with 89 per cent of companies still using the four-day workweek a year later and over half of the firms making the change permanent.

The study also showed that work intensity remains lower and job satisfaction is higher than before the pilot began with almost all the employees (96 per cent) saying their personal life had benefited, and 86 per cent said they felt they performed better at work.

chemicalwonka ,
@chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

4 day job is only for few white collar job and will never be the reality for the majority

KillerTofu ,

Are you saying that everyone should be experiencing the same level of misery? Because we can’t do it for all sectors, no one should?

lordnikon ,

They said a 5 day work week was a pipe dream but strong unions and literal lives were lost to bring that about 100 years ago.

If we did it once we can do it again. Lasting change is slow but if we keep pushing change can happen. On a long enough timeline we win.

spacecowboy ,

I’m fairly certain the uprising and purge of the royal family in Russia had more to do with our current work week than any union did.

Violence and bloodshed won us our (non permanent) rights.

xmunk ,

The history of the forty hour week stretches back a lot further than WWI and unions are a lot more powerful than you’re giving them credit for. Now, unions have a good portion of that power because violence is never fully off the table - but the blood spilled for American labor rights was mostly spilled by Americans at the hands of Pinkertons. A lot of other countries saw the writing on the wall and adopted those rights peacefully, but there are a lot of famous labor actions that happened in places other than Russia. The toppling of the Tzar certainly helped, but I think you’re giving it too much credit.

spacecowboy ,

I may be off the mark here, but did Ford not cite what happened over there as the reason he adopted the 5 day work week, thus making it mainstream in America?

xmunk ,

Ford wasn’t responsible for the forty hour week - the modern equivalent would be describing the fight for fifteen as an initiative pushed by Amazon. Amazon only raised warehouse pay because they saw the writing on the wall.

Politifact seems to think this attribution of the forty hour week is a conservative meme politifact.com/…/does-8-hour-day-and-40-hour-come… but it doesn’t really reflect the truth. Ford’s policy change also only happened two years after Woodrow Wilson was elected and a big policy debate in that election had been Teddy Roosevelt’s endorsement of a 40 hour week.

Wikipedia has a pretty solid breakdown of the history of the 40 hour week and the foundations for the change were laid decades to a century earlier by various labor movements. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day

Steve ,

I work at a large regional hospital, taking x-rays. It’s a 24x365 kind of job. I work 3 days each week. 12 hours per day. There’s no reason any job can’t be 4 days. You only need to adjust the schedule to make it work.

Showroom7561 ,

Why not? You get the same number of hours to work, just in 4 days.

xmunk ,

This study, and most reasonable implementations, are pushing for 8-4 not 10-4. This may sound counter intuitive but most employees are more productive working 32 hours rather than 40 - it’s very reasonable to assume that employees are more productive per hour when working less hours but the studies have shown that that productivity gain is so significant that you actually gain in total production if you give everyone an additional day off every week.

Showroom7561 ,

My bad, then. I thought this was the pilot where they’d get 4 days, but still work 40 hours.

Working 32 is better, but assuming they are not taking a pay cut (which was the point of the 4 day/40 hour week).

xmunk ,

If the white collar workers normalize it it’ll spread - the only really big exception to this is probably service workers - restaurants will still want to be open 7 days a week so waiters may be expected to work proportionally more hours… waiters tend to be a weak group in the labor market so I could see this imbalance lasting quite a while.

HauntedCupcake ,

They can just hire more staff. A lot of service jobs are part time anyway. There’s nothing having multiple rotas and more staff can’t fix

xmunk ,

That’s a perfectly reasonable solution… do you think the restaurant managers that try their damnedest to avoid paying waiters a livable wage and are statistically the most likely employers to commit wage theft or tax fraud - as well as advocating for tipping culture to again try and minimize compensation - do you think they’re likely to be on board with a solution that makes shift rotas more complicated? Or do you think they’ll continue to try and keep every waiter at exactly 39 hours technically not qualifying as an FTE on the books with duties like tear down being considered off shift?

I don’t think this is a reason not to push for 8-4 but I partially agree with the much downvoted comment above that this schedule won’t roll out at the same time for everyone.

HauntedCupcake ,

I 1000% agree, the asset class won’t give up their wealth. But to say it won’t happen because it’s not possible is wrong.

It won’t happen because a small minority of ludicrously privileged individuals, who treat the Forbes Billionaires list as a leaderboard, are too fucking greedy to only live an amazingly luxurious life instead of a ultra super duper amazingly luxurious life.

I think it’s downvoted because of a defeatist attitude. I agree with the highly downvoted top comment on a factual level, I’m not sure who wouldn’t

Patches ,

Service staff already work 1-4 days a week for starters -Thur, Friday, Sat, Sun are the best paying days. And secondly because nobody hires full-time anymore.

Crystal_Shards64 ,

I think societies would need to rethink and reasses hiw work is done. Maybe I’m naive for thinking that one day it will happen. Maybe not in our lifetime but I hope that someday people in every type of job get paid a living wage and are treated better overall.

OhmsLawn ,

In a forty-year career, that would work out to about 2000 extra days off, more than 5 1/2 cumulative years of work-free days.

Tolookah ,

Same math, but that’s 50 more days off a year, give or take. Most people would kill for that.

(I’m for the m-th, tu-f pair of weeks to get a 4 day every other weekend)

SinningStromgald ,

Where do I do the killing?

agent_flounder ,
@agent_flounder@lemmy.world avatar

I also wish to know.

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