Employees could get greater powers to work their contracted hours over fewer days.

Full-time workers’ rights to ask for a four-day working week could be strengthened under government plans to increase flexible working.

Employees would still have to work their full hours to receive their full pay but could request to compress their contracted hours into a shorter working week, as first reported by the Daily Telegraph.

Since April, workers have already had the right to ask for flexible working as soon as they start a job but firms do not have to agree.

The government says it will not impose changes on staff or businesses, but the Conservatives say businesses are “petrified” about the plans.

Education Minister Baroness Jacqui Smith told LBC that “flexible working is actually good for productivity”.

    • Krackalot@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      8·
      2 months ago

      I’m working 4x10s now. It isn’t any better. I usually do nothing on my day off because I’m exhausted. We can’t work more than 10 hours a day, so I’m no longer able to make up missed time except for my day off, and they didn’t wanna pay extra for holidays, so we swap back to 5x8s on holiday weeks, and the week before. Since they also wanted people in the shop every day, so, they did a rotating schedule because some people would complain if the holiday placement benefited someone else more.

    • Empricorn@feddit.nlEnglish
      155·
      2 months ago

      It’s not perfect, but 4 10-hour shifts is vastly preferable to 5 8-hour ones for most people. A lot more could be done, but I would still argue this is progress…

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.worldEnglish
        183·
        2 months ago

        4 ten hour days can more easily become 4 eight hour days. Working 10 hours means more breaks, more downtime, more slack during each day, and people are going to need to leave work more often to handle personal matters. If you can get everyone on board with being half-staffed on Mondays and Fridays (assuming that not everyone works the same 4 days) then you can make the argument that the additional 2 hours a day are unnecessary.

      • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        2 months ago

        It’ll be a minor miracle if the work can be arranged so the business has 5 days continuity without people being called or summoned to work on that free day.

  • fubarx@lemmy.mlEnglish
    18·
    2 months ago

    4x10 hours could just lead to more rapid burnout.

    Why not move gradually toward 4x8, but give employees the option of taking an annual pay raise or reduce a few hours each week until, after a few years, the numbers have stabilized? This way, the labor cost to the company stays the same, but employees have a choice of higher pay or more free time.

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    16·
    2 months ago

    Needs to be 32 hours. Just shoving the same 40 hours into 4 days is not actually an improvement.

    Are 4 10s better? It depends on who you ask. On the dark side, one could argue that it does more to normalize a 10-hour day than to “shorten” the work week.

    You won’t see the same kinds of varied responses if it were a 32-hour week with no pay reduction, though.

  • tlou3please@lemmy.worldEnglish
    71·
    2 months ago

    I worked a 4 day week for years (4*10 hours) with my old employer and it was fantastic. And I can say for sure that it didn’t affect productivity for me or my team.

    I don’t have kids but several of my colleagues did and it was a game changer for them. Especially the one whose partner worked for the same organisation, who could sync it up to save an absolute fortune on childcare (which is absurdly expensive here).

    Another colleague was a single mother and had the choice to choose which days she did each week, meaning she could do more with her child and make it to events and such. I have no doubt that that will have a long term positive impact on her son too.

    For me as a childless person I could use 2 days of annual leave to get 5 days off straight. £40 return ticket to Spain or Italy, a cheap hotel, and you can have a lovely little holiday any time of year.

    I had to leave for unrelated personal reasons but that shift pattern was glorious. No less work got done and everyone was happier. And it turns out - surprise surprise - when your staff are happy they produce better work.

    It’s such a no brainer. But I won’t get excited, because a certain generation seems to take any improvement for the younger generation as some kind of personal attack.

    • Redacted@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      2 months ago

      Why would you expect it to affect productivity when you were working the same number of hours?

      It’s just slightly increased flexibility under the guise of a 4 day week.

      • tlou3please@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31·
        2 months ago

        I guess the logic is, and I don’t agree, that people will burn out through the day and spend the last couple hours phoning it in. That’s not my experience of what actually happens but I think that’s what some people think.

        • eyeon@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          there’s also the impact of having less consistency in hours. i.e if I work Friday and don’t work Monday but am blocked waiting for someone whondoesnt work friday…it’s waiting until Tuesday.

          • tlou3please@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            2 months ago

            That’s true but I found that nothing was really so urgent that it particularly mattered. If it did, there should be a 24 hour contingency anyway.

  • Fogle@lemmy.caEnglish
    5·
    2 months ago

    4x10s sucks unless it comes with more breaks. 4 is what we want. Or 5 6s

  • Justin@lemmy.jlh.nameEnglish
    5·
    2 months ago

    There’s a big debate over this in Sweden right now, too. Average working hours have been increasing in Sweden since the 80s.

  • ms.lane@lemmy.worldEnglish
    62·
    2 months ago

    More class division.

    The blue collar working classes will never be allowed a 32hour/4 day week, it’s only for the landed gentry and professional classes who will make sure to pull the ladder up after them.

    • Azal@pawb.socialEnglish
      3·
      2 months ago

      Yea, I read this as a biomed and was like “We’re definitely not getting this.”

  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.spaceEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    The 4x10 week sucks compared to the 32-hour version that was originally proposed, but it could be seen as a sensible compromise between “radical left” ideas such as sub-40-hour weeks and the 996 (9am-9pm, 6 days a week) system common in China and India (who, the pundits will say, are eating our lunch because we’re lazy)