In Autumn 2024, the UK will consider whether to introduce legislation that allows workers to request a 4 day week.
While the news has been dominating headlines and social posts, here we present the hard facts surrounding the stories and investigate whether the four day working week UK is likely to happen, as well as the pros and cons of a compressed work week for both employers and businesses.
Read on to discover everything you need to know about the 4 day week campaign in the UK, and what this could mean for workers and employers in the near future. We’ll cover frequently asked questions about the four-day working week, and take a deep dive into the advantages and disadvantages of the policy, based on existing research and studies.
What is the UK Legislation Surrounding the Four-Day Week?
The UK’s leading Labour government is considering new laws that would give employees the right to request a four-day working week from their employers. Part of the party’s plan for workers, individuals would be given the option to work ‘compressed hours’, working their regular hours over four days instead of five.
How many hours would the 4-day week include? In the UK, the law that is being considered would mean that workers would still be expected to work a 35-40 hour week, effectively 5 days work compressed into 4.
The new legislation is expected to be considered in Autumn 2024, as part of the Department for Business and Trade’s Make Work Pay plan, and Labour’s New Deal for Working People, which would also include banning exploitative zero-hour contracts, ending ‘fire and rehire’ practices, and giving workers the ‘right to switch off’, with no obligation to pick up work calls and emails outside of office hours.
Which Countries Have a Four-Day Work Week?
Many countries have been experimenting with the idea of a shorter working week, conducting studies to assess the impact on productivity, employee morale and the business economy. The interest in introducing compressed hours or a 4-day week through either legislation or cultural acceptance has likely been sped up in the wake of the COVID pandemic, when many individuals moved towards complete remote working, hybrid working or flexitime.
While many countries, including Italy, Germany and Ireland, have experimented with a 4 day work week study or trial, or advised compressing hours into four days, few territories have fully committed to shortening the work week.
Some 4 day working week trials have produced long-term results elsewhere, however. Belgium became the first European country to allow citizens to request a four-day work week without a loss of income in 2022, while the UAE was the first country to legally adopt a reduced working week, shortening working days in the province of Sharjah from five to four in 2024. Other countries, like the Netherlands, have culturally if not legally adopted four day week labour, with citizens widely adopting a four day week without formal legislation.
What Are the Advantages of a Four-Day Week?
Flexible working hours are widely considered to be the future of working, and advances in communication technology have improved the ability of individuals to work from home or check in with colleagues on a flexitime basis. While some economists have warned about the possible impact of a shorter work week on productivity (see below), the general consensus seems to be moving towards at least a compressed hours model in the UK, if not a truly shorter working week.
What are the pros of a 4 day week? The advantages of shorter working weeks are numerous, particularly for employees, and include:
Improved work-life balance and health benefits
Studies have connected over-working and work-related stress to both physical and mental health issues, including fatigue and burnout, to more extreme issues like strokes and cardiovascular problems. A better balance between work and life outside of office hours promotes improved health and generally makes workers feel happier and less likely to leave a job due to stress or long hours.
Increased productivity and company revenue
In a 2023 pilot scheme conducted with 61 UK-based businesses, and spearheaded by a team of social scientists from the University of Cambridge, the impact of a 4-day week on employee productivity was found to be largely positive, with workers reporting greater levels of motivation and morale. There was also a positive knock-on effect on company revenue, which hardly changed during the trial period, and even increasing by an average of 1.4% for 23 of the companies able to provide data. Some studies in different countries have revealed slightly different revenue results, but overall the productivity and motivation of staff improved across the board.
Better flexible working options for parents, women and childcarers
According to the Fawcett Society, more than a quarter of a million UK mothers with young children left their jobs in 2023 after struggling to balance work with childcare cost and responsibilities. A four-day week has been suggested as a way of eliminating the ‘Motherhood Penalty’, offering mothers and childcarers an extra day for family responsibilities, and shaving a day off already extremely high childcare costs.
Environmental benefits
One less day commuting means one less day of polluting travel for the UK environment, while businesses won’t have to run their office facilities for the day, leading to lower emissions and a reduced carbon footprint.
What Are the Disadvantages of a Four-Day Week?
Despite many studies pointing to a short work week as positive in many ways, there are still some reservations surrounding the UK committing to a 4 day week. Some politicians have described the potential legislation as ‘devastating’ for businesses, backed by some corporations and economists who harbour concerns about the law. So what are the cons of a 4 day week? According to some sources, a shorter working week could lead to:
Scheduling challenges
With any policy as seismic as the 4 day working week, businesses will have to deal with a potentially huge shift in how they organise their teams and interact with other businesses. At a micro-scale, workers may encounter challenges in scheduling work, meetings or output if not everyone is completely aligned. At a macro, B2B level, business owners will also need to consider the scheduling needs of partners, consultants and supporting businesses, as well as businesses abroad who may not be following the same work week pattern.
Internal employee resentment
The key to making the 4 day working week successful seems to be universal implementation of an agreed work hours policy across the whole organisation. If a company designates a ‘protected day’, rather than spreading the day across the week or allocating different days to different workers, this seems to have worked better for the long-term in companies subjected to 4-day week trials. Within teams it also seems to be crucial to have everybody aligned and feeling that they are being treated equally, to avoid internal resentment brewing. That means flexitime allocated equally for everyone, and no underhand deals agreed with individual employees that would benefit them over others.
FAQs About the 4-Day Week Answered
We all have questions about the four-day week, and employees and business owners are likely to approach the subject from different angles. Business owners should be prepared to receive queries from employees about the new legislation and flexitime more broadly, so it’s important to brush up on the legal specifics to approach discussions from an informed angle.
Below, you’ll find common questions workers often ask about the shorter working week and compressed hours, but you can also stay savvy about the 4-day week guidance for local authorities and businesses from information on the gov.uk website here.
Can I ask my boss if I can work 4 days a week?
The short answer is yes, though at the moment there is no guarantee or requirement that an employer has to accept the request.
From April 2024, any employee in the UK has the right to make a statutory flexible working request from the first day of their employment, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that an employer has to oblige by the request. Rather, the request must be considered within two months and a decision made in consultation with the employee.
If new legislation comes into force in Autumn 2024, workers’ rights to request a four-day week will likely be extended, though it is unclear what exactly the new law will entail, and how much power will be given to workers to request and employers to refuse. What we know at the moment is that employers must deal with requests in a ‘reasonable manner’ but can reject them ‘if they have a good business reason for doing so’.
Whatever the outcome of the new 4 day legislation, it is probable that employees will still have to go through a formal process of requesting compressed hours or shortening the work week. It’s advisable to send the request in written format and keep reasonable avenues of communication open throughout the decision period.
Do I need to alert my team about my plan to ask for a 4-day week?
No, there is no legal obligation to alert your colleagues or team members about your plan to request a 4 day week, compressed hours, flexitime or lower work hours from your employer. However, you might want to inform colleagues of your intention if it would have a possible effect on productivity, scheduling or shift management.
As an employer, will rejecting an individual’s request for a 4 day week or an office-wide 4 day week petition impact on my business?
4 day working week trials have generally created positive results for businesses, but there may be cases where it is more difficult to implement a shorter working week, especially if other businesses you partner or trade with are also not observing the #4dayweek.
You might weigh up the pros and cons for you business and decide that a shorter working week is not going to work, or be very difficult to implement. In this case, you will need to communicate clearly to your employees the reasons behind rejecting 4-day week requests and be ready to accept possible consequences. If more companies in the UK adopt the 4-day week, some employees might choose to go elsewhere for improved flexitime options, or in more extreme cases a lack of clear communication surrounding the decision might impact on team morale or even sow the seeds of a toxic work culture.
Will a 4-Day Week Be Better for Businesses in the UK?
The 4 day week studies conducted so far all seem to point to yes, a shorter working week is likely to have a positive impact on UK businesses, with improvements across worker wellbeing and productivity expected to result in higher corporate revenue and a better workplace experience for employees and employers overall.
While the specifics of the UK’s four day week law are not yet known, the legislation represents a further step in building more flexibility into the UK’s work culture, to mimic what seems to be working successfully in other countries trialling or legalising four day week labour.
The Value of Background Screening in Hiring for a Shorter Work Week
For employers there will undoubtedly be challenges relating to the 4 day legislation, as it will become even more important for businesses to offer the option of flexitime or compressed hours to attract and retain employees.
If you’re looking for candidates who are going to maximize their productivity and team efforts within a time-restricted week, it’s advisable to use a background screening tool like YOONO to assess if someone will be the right fit for your 4 day week work culture at the outset of the hiring process. Identify hard workers and people who get-it-done with a simple search that reveals insights about their social media presence, educational background, employment history and much more.
With such a seismic shift in the UK’s working landscape ahead, it pays to be vigilant and adapt, selecting the right people for your business going forward into the future. Hiring, networking or scoping out new leads, YOONO allows you to go into any business decision with informed confidence. Sign up for YOONO today with no payment obligation, and your account will be credited with 5 free search reports, so you can start researching the best people right now.
