A four-day week will only intensify the UK’S economic inactivity crisis
It is hard to see any of the groups organising the trial losing sleep over potential costs to businesses
‘Individual work rates being more closely monitored could lead to higher levels of stress than people anticipate’
Few areas have been subject to more tedious speculation in the wake of the pandemic than the future of work. On the one hand, people say, Covid has ushered in a brave new world of hybrid working; on the other we hear Rees-moggian claims that office attendance is vital for employee co-ordination and collaboration. Both will, somehow, boost output.
Though we can expect years of adjustment to coronavirus-induced ways of working, it should come as no surprise that the usual voices in the Labour Party, the trade union movement and the HR management racket are demanding employee protections be strengthened post-haste.
Yet economists are divided on the impact of hybrid working on productivity. Data earlier this year showed output surges when we work from home, but this could be down to a range of factors, including the likelihood that the pandemic disproportionately killed off lower productivity firms.
And if this evidence must be taken with a pinch of salt, given remote working was borne out of necessity rather than desirability, then surveys of employees should be taken with a handful. Workers – for whom hybrid working may be a very attractive proposition – are unlikely to be the most scrupulous judges of their own productivity.
So perhaps news that a four-day week pilot scheme has been launched this week is welcome. If proponents are right, it will provide us with a rich data set on the benefits of the 100:80:100 model – 100pc of pay for 80pc of the time, in exchange for a commitment to maintain 100pc productivity. Around 70 organisations and 3,000 employees are taking part, with the latter receiving no loss in pay.
The trial has been given nearunanimously positive coverage. Organisers have hailed “output focused” working as a vehicle to give firms a competitive edge. Participating businesses have seized on the PR opportunity: “We’re doing this to improve the lives of our staff,” one founder told the BBC.
Workers are said to be exhausted. Burnout has been declared an occupational hazard by the World Health Organisation. And so, the narrative goes, the solution is to further elevate employee happiness. Working from home, a right to disconnect and flexible working have all been claimed as win-wins for public health and the economy. It is, however, worth pointing out that hours worked in the UK are not particularly high by international standards, and for full-time workers have been falling for some time.
The pilot itself is being co-ordinated by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with the think tank Autonomy, the
4 Day Week UK Campaign and academics from universities here and in the US. It is hard to see any of these groups losing sleep over the potential costs to businesses, or the risk that the trial will suffer the Hawthorne effect, with participants modifying their behaviour in the knowledge it is being observed – and reverting to previous practices when the circus has moved on.
No doubt some companies can pull off a four-day week, and the pilot should help identify those who will benefit. Companies must always be open to new ways of working, and perks such as a three-day weekend could boost recruitment and retention. As the evidence comes in, some will adopt this model. Though this should be a decision taken by individual companies, it risks being weaponised in the battle for yet more employment legislation. But just as we could imagine business models that might benefit from a four-day week, there are those that could suffer badly if such a policy were mandated.
Some 99pc of UK firms are small to medium-sized, and only 25pc employ more than one person. How are they to cut back their working hours by a fifth without real impact on their customers? Even larger companies would likely struggle: having senior figures working different schedules would increase the time before they can react to sudden change.
And there are some services where productivity gains from a four-day working week are surely not an option. Doctors are already struggling to provide enough GP appointments – how can they see 25pc more patients in a day? The self-employed already work more than five days; if they want to reduce their hours, they do so at their own cost.
Further, to fulfil their current workload across four days, employees will have to work more effectively during working hours, cutting out those “leisure on the job” moments when attention strays and thoughts turn to what’s for supper or checking Facebook. A 25pc increase in hourly productivity – which is what is needed to make the four-day week cost-neutral – is some call.
It’s all very well folks at the top exuding bonhomie and dishing out press quotes welcoming new working patterns. The reality is that there will still be pressures on company performance, with middle and junior managers pressing staff to fulfil targets, and individual work rates being more closely monitored. This could lead to higher levels of stress than people anticipate.
Advocates for more regulation suggest we look to Belgium as the poster-nation for employee well-being. Its government recently introduced a raft of new labour market regulations – but it has an employment rate around 10 percentage points lower than ours. France, which has also dabbled with artificial restrictions on the working week, has consistently struggled with a low employment rate and poor competitiveness.
The UK has a flexible labour market with a wide range of types of employment. Prior to the pandemic, nearly 1.5m had term-time only jobs. Over 100,000 had job shares. A four-day week could become one of the options chosen by some companies. But we already have a way of managing trade-offs between the needs of businesses and the preferences of their workers: the market economy. It’s time the Government rediscovered it – and not just for employment’s sake.