By Charlotte Lockhart

Over the last few days there have been a couple of opinion pieces critical of the idea of the 4 Day Week. Usually I let these slide, I know our support of companies introducing a 4 Day Week, or some other reduced hour week, will show the way of the future in time, simply by the sheer number of companies doing it successfully.

And nowhere more is this likely that in the United Kingdom. It is not a political issue, it is not a matter of the Left want this, Labour say that, the unions agree. This is a question about creating the society we want.

The UK lost 17.9 million work days in 2019/2020 to workplace stress and mental health according to ONS. And more frightening 38.8 million in total due to work-related ill health and non-fatal workplace injuries. These are statistics we should be concerned about, they adversely impact on our businesses and productivity and our economy, just as much as they impact on our health, our families and the NHS. However, companies with reduced hours working self-report large reductions in sick days.

In the first news item from the Daily Mail, Lord Skidelsky describes the 4 Day Week movement (along with work from home) as deluded and a looming disaster.

In the second item from the Daily Telegraph, Ben Marlow, Chief City Commentator, clearly states his position in the headline.

Lord Skidelsky is correct, a one-size-fits-all approach does not work, and zero-hour contracts as part of the gig economy are destabilising for workers and the economy. But to describe new variations of how we will work as deluded and a disaster, fails to recognise that the way we were working before the pandemic is no longer fit for purpose. We should be striving to use this opportunity to retune our attitude to work – both as employees and employers, our rejection of low productivity and recognise the employers and employees are not at odds with each other. It should not, nor does it need to be, a battleground, as described by Mr. Marlow. We see time and time again, agile leaders who engage in the problem with their people, no matter the industry, solutions are found not only to increase productivity and reduce time, but to other significant business problems.

John Maynard Keynes certainly did prophesise that we would be working 15 hours a week by now, and Lord Skidelsky is right that our society and our economy were constructed very differently in the 1930’s. In the intervening 100 years since the 5 day week we have seen many great changes, and it is not just around our consumerism. We have a workforce which more equally includes women - and not just in “traditional” roles, we have better health care and medical knowledge, we have better homes, education and food. There is so much which is better, so much where subsistence is no longer the standard, but we have negatively, and undeniably, impacted on our planet.

Mr. Marlow believes the Great Resignation is “hugely exaggerated”, and yet his link to another Daily Telegraph article is titled “Half of Britain's workers eye new jobs in 'Great Resignation” No matter your opinion on size descriptors, this headline in the UK is matched with similar headlines around the world. This is an international trend. What this demonstrates is not that workers “believe” (Mr. Marlow again) they have the upper hand, but they want and expect to be consulted. Nowhere more was this highlighted than by the reaction from Apple employees when in the middle of last year Tim Cook announced that they would look to return to work 3 days a week. Prior to the pandemic, it’s probably safe to assume that had he announced this policy, it would have been well received. Now staff expect to be consulted, and why not?

Mr. Marlow is also worried that soon “the younger generation are likely to consider the idea of commuting long distances to and from an office akin to madness.” I would not be described as being the younger generation, but I think long commutes are madness, don’t you? Sorry Great British Railways, but this is unproductive time, it is a waste of time. It is time better spend at home, in our communities, on our health, looking after our planet. The bosses are not paying their people to share a train with people they develop a connection with out of necessity not choice. One can not deny that there will challenges ahead for big city landlords and those who have made money from the old way we worked, the call for us to all return to our offices, is mostly led by those who are losing the benefits of a present working population.

Lord Skidelsky’s misses an understanding of how the 4 Day Week’s evidence-based 100:80:100™ (100% productivity, in 80% of the time, for 100% of the pay) model has a profound and positive impact on both workers and businesses. It is designed with economic benefits and progress in mind. It’s about working smarter, not longer.

We refer to ourselves and the work we do as The 4 Day Week, but in reality we focus on reducing work time in a sustainable way, not just a 20% reduction in time. This represents the best of all worlds: optimal productivity, work-life balance, worker benefits and a solution to pervasive economic inequities such as the gender pay gap and lack of diversity in business and governance. It is, of course, where the French went wrong. Reducing time without the associated focus on productivity and use of time, was doomed to fail. None of us want that.

The missing element in both Mr. Marlow’s and Lord Skidelsky’s calculations is that many employers now recognise the need for their people to work fewer hours for the benefit of their physical and mental health, for the benefit of our society and our planet. They find when they do so, they benefit their business too. Burnout from overwork is having a compound negative effect not just in our businesses but has been keenly felt by our nurses and doctors during the pandemic and needs to be addressed for the sustainability of our economy. As an economist, I am sure Lord Skidelsky will agree, it is uneconomic for the NHS to have extra patients due to avoidable workplace ill-health, for key personal (nurses and doctors) who are over worked and stressed themselves to be treating these patients, before leaving the industry for the same reason, overwork and burnout. It is a triple negative, more patients, lesser standard of care, more people leaving. How can they win?

Those businesses with agile thinking leaders are prepared to work towards understanding how they can do this without impacting on either take home pay or the company’s bottom line. They recognise that to attract and retain the best staff they need to provide a better work life balance. 

We see time and time again businesses in all industries able to shift over to reduced hour working when they partner with their people (with or without the involvement of a union) and share the benefits of improving productivity and more time. In fact, the bulk of businesses reducing work hours are largely not unionised.

The data speaks for itself. Microsoft Japan saw a 40% gain in employee satisfaction and productivity resulted during their trial of a 4 Day Week. Bolt, which has gone permanent with its 4 Day Week found that 86% of staff increased their productivity and efficiency. And the list goes on. With our global pilot programme we are running thorough research alongside every business who joins. This will give us independent and academically rigorous information which we expect will confirm the in house and experience based reports which come from the businesses themselves directly. So yes, Mr. Marlow, we will find out.

We, as business leaders and those with influence, have a responsibility to find better ways of working to stop the breakdown in our society, the impact on our health, the roadblock to equity and the damage to our planet. We can do this without impacting productivity. Reducing work time, whether as a 4 Day Week, or some other pattern is part of this solution. 

As we look to how improve our world moving forward, we can not ignore that generations of humans have always strived to give their children a better chance in life. Both Mr. Marlow and Lord Skidelsky seem to want the younger generations to have the same life as ours. We have a chance to truly question what is better. What is it we are giving our young ones? If we don’t give it to them, they will simply take it – in the way the young people throughout history always have. And one day they will be our new leaders. I believe we should give them a hand up, not force them into historical thinking that holds them down.

It is not a matter of Left or Right, this is a time in history where we can decide the future.

Let the last word be from Brené Brown, US professor and author.