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Working one day less a week without a pay cut sounds tempting. The potential benefits of a four-day week for businesses can include better staff satisfaction, reduced sickness, and easier recruitment, as argued by advocates.
The pandemic injected momentum into campaigns for four-day working weeks. However, a failed trial by the UK web hosting company Krystal has highlighted the difficulties for customer-facing businesses. Maintaining weekly opening times without hiring extra staff is challenging for them. For many, flexible working policies are an easier recruitment and retention tool.
Krystal Hosting has reintroduced a five-day week for the 18 people who staff its customer help desk. These technical support staff had been working one day less a week for the same pay since June 1. Those on a Monday-Friday shift pattern had either Fridays or Mondays off.
Krystal ended the experiment prematurely after noticing a decline in response times. On their busiest day, Monday, the team was only 50% staffed. To ease the transition back to five days, technical support staff now have an hour less in the evening and a 30-minute lunch break, reducing their working week to 37.5 hours from 40.
Other companies have reported better results. Over 60 UK organizations participated in a four-day week trial last year. Out of those, 18 adopted the policy permanently, and 38 extended the experiment, stating that revenues remained stable during the test period.
Most participants were from the marketing, advertising, and professional services industries, where working hours can be easily reshuffled. Manufacturing firms would find it challenging to achieve the required 25% improvement in productivity on the remaining days. For example, Unilever did not include factory staff in their separate four-day week trials in Australia and New Zealand.
Interpretations can also vary. In the UK, working hours decreased from an average of 38 to 34 – technically a half day rather than a full day. In Belgium, where employees have the right to request a four-day week, this often means compressing their hours rather than reducing them.
A true four-day week is likely to remain an exceptional perk rather than the norm for most workers.
The Lex team is interested in hearing more from readers. Please share your thoughts on the four-day working week in the comments section below.
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