Let’s consider the pros: environmental impacts - a four-day week could mean less commuting and potentially reduce the UK’s carbon footprint by as much 127 million tonnes as a result, according to environmental organisation Platform London and the 4 Day Week Campaign. The advantages don’t stop at taking 27 million cars off the road during rush hour though – campaigners also insisted the extra time out of work could free up time to make environmentally positive choices. For example, Brits would have time to do journeys on foot instead of by car or cook with fresh ingredients instead of relying on ready meals.
Joe Ryle, a campaigner with the 4 Day Week Campaign, said: “The four-day week with no loss of pay is a win-win for both workers and employers. Wherever we’re seeing the four-day week implemented, productivity is going up and so is workers’ wellbeing. We invented the weekend a century ago. It’s time for an update.”
The big question for employers is: how does a four-day working week impact on productivity?
Campaigners have long claimed that making employees work for four days instead of five actually increases productivity. There are several studies backing up that claim but big businesses have also found benefits – Microsoft trialled a four-day working week for a month in Japan in August 2019 and reported a 40 per cent rise in productivity.
As well as Scotland, Ireland has announced plans for a pilot programme to test out a four-day working week from January 2022. The experiment will last for six months and see employers in Ireland test the idea out alongside others in the United States and New Zealand. Further afield, a three-year 32-hour working week experiment has been launched in Spain as part of the European country’s economic recovery following Covid-19. The leftwing Spanish party, Más País, made the proposal earlier this year and the Spanish government has now given the project the green light.
Some big businesses have been keen to test out the idea too, Unilever announced last November it would be trialling a four-day working week in New Zealand.
In Iceland, trials in which workers were paid the same amount for shorter hours, took place between 2015 and 2019. Productivity remained the same or improved in the majority of workplaces, researchers said. Now 86% of Iceland's workforce have either moved to shorter hours for the same pay, or will gain the right to, the researchers said. Workers reported feeling less stressed and at risk of burnout, and said their health and work-life balance had improved. They also reported having more time to spend with their families, do hobbies and complete household chores.
Will Stronge, director of research at Autonomy, said: "This study shows that the world's largest ever trial of a shorter working week in the public sector was by all measures an overwhelming success - lessons can be learned from other governments." Gudmundur Haraldsson, a researcher at Alda, said: "The Icelandic shorter working week journey tells us that not only is it possible to work less in modern times, but that progressive change is possible too."
But the Westminster government has been reluctant to follow suit. When quizzed about Autonomy’s findings that a four-day working week could create 500,000 public sector jobs last summer, a government spokesperson said: “It is not for the government to mandate working patterns for businesses or their employees.”
