the 4 Day Week Foundation announced that over 200 UK companies, employing more than 5,000 people, have permanently switched to the shorter working week without any reduction in pay
10:27, 29 Jan 2025Updated 11:25, 29 Jan 2025
Companies that have implemented a four-day working week have expressed no regrets, citing no decline in performance and an added bonus of easier recruitment.
Kirsten Dean, head of finance at Scottish housing association Melville, said that staff were initially in "disbelief" when the company piloted the policy in 2023. "They thought it was too good to be true that it had no strings attached," she recalled, but after more than a year of adopting the new working pattern, she confidently stated, "I don’t ever see us going back".
On Monday, the 4 Day Week Foundation announced that over 200 UK companies, employing more than 5,000 people, have permanently switched to the shorter working week without any reduction in pay. These companies span various sectors, including marketing agencies, IT firms, consultancies, and charities.
The Foundation asserts that a shorter working week boosts motivation and provides employees with "the freedom to live happier, more fulfilling lives".
Melville, which manages over 2,000 rental homes across central Scotland, closely monitored tenant satisfaction and property letting rates to ensure that staff were maintaining their performance levels after the switch. Although Ms Dean acknowledged that it wasn't entirely smooth sailing, with some tenants initially questioning the plan, customer satisfaction surveys revealed no adverse effects.
She revealed that the policy has also facilitated the recruitment of top-tier staff, with an officer from another association recently agreeing to take a pay cut to join Melville. The four-day week is "definitely a draw" for applicants, she said.
Having an extra day off each week means "a day where I don’t have to put my son into nursery. I get to spend a full day with him," Ms Dean added. "From a mental health point of view, it certainly has been a benefit to myself and the staff."
The rising popularity of the shorter work week comes as some large corporations are retracting their pandemic-era flexible working policies, with tech behemoth Amazon recently insisting on daily office attendance from its staff.
Critics of the four-day week have labelled it as lazy, and lobbying group the TaxPayers’ Alliance initiated a campaign called "Stop the clock off" to resist public sector workers adopting the scheme.
Another organisation that has introduced a four-day working pattern for its staff is Brook, a charity that operates sexual health clinics across England for local authorities. Sam Hepworth, the charity’s head of communications, stated: "I wouldn’t describe anyone here as being lazy."
He explained that many of the charity’s clinical staff undertake "very challenging work" with patients dealing with difficult conditions. "That can take its toll, both emotionally and physically, for staff. In order for them to be able to maintain that level of commitment, they need that bit of extra time to prevent them burning out."
Mr Hepworth disclosed some of the adjustments necessary to accommodate the new working hours, acknowledging that shift patterns have been altered to ensure clinics remain open as usual, while office staff have had to become "smarter with our time" to complete their tasks within a shortened timeframe. "We’ve cut down on the number of meetings that we have, and made them shorter," he remarked.
Revealing feedback from the initial trial of the scheme in 2023, Mr Hepworth shared that an impressive 86% of participants rated their experience as "very positive", and a further 87% felt it had either preserved or boosted their motivation. He confirmed that an overwhelming majority, nine out of ten respondents, expressed support for the continuation of the initiative.
Since implementing the policy, Brook has received a flood of interest from similar organisations curious about its efficacy. Following the success of the pilot in 2023, the charity's leaders made the decision to adopt the reduced working hours permanently. "We decided it was a no-brainer to carry on," declared Mr Hepworth.