After working for 10 years on 3 days a week and then another 5 doing 4 days a week the last few years of working a 5 day a week job has been the most miserable adjustment of my life. I've still not fully come to terms with how much of my time is ruined by working.
this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2024
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I'm a big four day week stan and I never expected to see it pushed during this parliament. Obviously the end result is going to be heavily dependent on what they end up implementing, but this is potentially huge for many, many people.
Fwiw a 4 day week, and a 5 day week compressed in to 4 days, are different things.
Yes. And there's recent evidence in the UK that shows that.
The success in South Cambs council is often quoted, but it was a 4x8 hours scheme, not a 4x10. 4x10 often fails because of exhaustion. I think there was a recent example in Welsh local government, but I can't currently find it.
I think last year's positive 4 day week report was largely 4x8 schemes as well.
This is true. It's still an awful lot more flexibility though. And of course as none of this legislation is written yet, it could lean either way while enabling both.
I generally don’t believe anything printed by the Torygraph. I’m not going to donate my data or any money to them so I can only read the headline, I’m guessing they are putting a really negative spin on it? ‘Labour will tank the economy’ and make things much harder for already ruined businesses (while not mentioning what spent the last 14 years ruining them)
I’ll just be glad to be well enough to get back to work, a 4 day week may get me back much sooner.
The Torygraph gets neither payment nor ad impressions from that.
Ah yes I always forget about the archive!
I was so close… petrified businesses not ruined businesses, they are just scared of being ruined.
FYI archive.md and all those others are not affiliated with archive.org, run by Internet Archive.
Yeah but those archive sites are a bit dodgy, they poison DNS requests and it cannot be resolved with many privacy-focused DNS providers.
archive.md, archive.ph, archive.today should not be confused with archive.org, aka The Way Back Machine, run by Internet Archive. The former are basically impersonating them (although they do at least get around paywalls better).
although they do at least get around paywalls better
That's why I use them as there aren't many paywalls they can't get through.
I'm personally not a fan of adding another ~2 hours onto my work days just to get a 3 day weekend. I feel like I would lose my time in the afternoon to wind down. I would much prefer to cut down to a 4 day week and work less hours with the same pay, but most companies are not going to do that.
Based on the article it's still going to be something you have to request, so you should still be able to have your current setup unless your company gets so many requests it decides to standardise on 4long instead of 5.
We’ve been doing 4x days at 9 hours, with an 8 hour Friday, and then taking every other Friday off.
It’s still 40 hours but it’s something at least. I’d love to get down to 32 hours a week but I don’t want my pay to suffer. The Brits or the EU would have to do it first before the rest of the world might even think about trying it.
Full time where I work is 37 hours a week with a 5 hour Friday. I've asked for a 4 day week by splitting those 5 hours over the other 4 days but have been refused. This seems to be about giving workers the right to request this arrangement, it shouldn't force anyone to do it if they are happier sticking with their current 5 day week.
I've been doing 4-long for about five years. If required, I'll do work on Fridays, and some aspects of my job require occasional unsocial hours. For me, it's a good arrangement. Ideally, people will have choices and won't be coerced into a single working pattern.
Four day week could be so fucking huge. Please please please.
The biggest thing might be that it signals a government led by data and not by feels.
The optimist in me says yay 🎉, but the cynic in me worries that this is just Labour shaking a potential carrot at us just before announcing what is reportedly about to be the most savage tax hiking budget in recent history. They were originally going to do it in a couple of weeks on the 13th of Sept but recently pushed the announcement back to the 30th of October just before Halloween.
It feels like they know it's going to piss everyone off, so they want more time to promise some sunshine 🌞 and rainbows 🌈 stuff first. Also, reading through that article it already sounds like there's going to be plenty of wiggle room for businesses to make sure they get their pound of flesh by squeezing 5 day into 4 from workers or outright use the “not reasonably feasible” exemption if the definitions are vague in any way.
I hope I'm wrong, but ironically it's the last few years of Labour really ramping up how aggressively they picked apart everything the Tories were doing that's made me so cynical of all politicians. 🤨
Currently, employees have the legal right to request flexible working, but there is no obligation on companies to agree. That balance of power is to be shifted, with companies instead legally obliged to offer flexible working from day one except where it is “not reasonably feasible”.
Seems this isn't about a 4 day week specifically, but about employers being required to give their reasons when they reject flexible working requests. The telegraph is just using it as an example of something an employee could request.
When we requested flexible working the answer was no and the reason given was the managers have to come in 5 days a week so therefore so does everyone else. Which is such a stupid answer that it beggars believe.
Reported as misleading headline. It's not actual policy.
Not much we can do as it isn't editorialised by OP, that's all on the Torygraph.
We may want a list of sites for this community that are either black or grey listed but we also don't want to overly restrict the sources used too much as you'd be in danger of groupthink and enforcing a more left-leaning mindset that doesn't properly reflect the range of opinion amongst general British voters.
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the amount of people just reading the headline and not understanding this isnt an actual 4 day work week, just 10 hour work days is funny.
its getting reposted all over the internet as 'labour introduces 4 day work week!' when they have literally just changed the wording on some things that where already like that; employers already had to consider any compressed 4 day work week request in the UK before this.
Its only a 4 day work week if they reduce the hours!
this is just useless piss spin that means absolutely nothing
the 'four day work week' was already a thing you could ask for, in the sense its your normal work hours compressed into 4 days, not an extra day off.
literally 80% of my team where already doing this with the conservatives in power, they have just changed the wording on it; complete spin.
Apparently it's more than just wording, it requires the employer to give a valid reason for refusing.
of which they have provided multiple that need no evidencing, it has nothing new.