Frequently Asked Questions

The four-day week is a 32-hour working week (or less) worked over four days, with no reduction in pay.

No, this is not a four-day week. This is a five-day week with compressed hours resulting in four very long work days. This is not what we are campaigning for.

No. We are campaigning for a four-day week with no reduction in pay. This is the model which nearly all four-day week organisations have adopted across the world and the model that is being used for government-led trials in Scotland, Spain, Ireland and elsewhere.

The best implementations of the four-day week are well planned and involve a thorough consultation with staff beforehand. There is no one-size-fits-all model. Implementation will need to be flexible and carefully calibrated.

Many companies across the world, including in the UK, have already switched to a four-day week with successful outcomes for employers and employees.

For more advice on implementation see here.

No. In the UK there are already examples of construction, manufacturing, engineering, retail and hospitality companies and schools all moving to a four-day week.

In Germany, the IG Metall trade union won an agreement which resulted in 3.9 million metal and engineering workers being offered a four-day week with no loss in pay.

All workers in all sectors deserve a better work-life balance.

Employees in these sectors report some of the highest work-related physical and mental health problems, most of which are intimately connected to overwork. Construction workers are currently putting in more than five hours more per week than the average worker in Britain.

A shorter working week could make construction and manufacturing significantly more attractive to prospective workers, helping to retain existing workers and handing the industry an important and much-needed win at a critical moment.

Rested workers are more productive, fewer mistakes are made and quality of workmanship improves.

Given the manifold likely benefits of introducing a four-day week in these sectors, we propose a series of trials.

It is fairly common but not always the case that during a trial period, whether three months, six months or longer - holiday allowances stay the same.

When implemented permanently, again some organisations have chosen to keep holiday allowances the same, but it is also very common for holiday allowances to be reduced in line with the overall reduction in working hours. For example, for those dropping down from a 40 hour five-day week to a 32 hour four-day week, they would see their holiday allowance reduced by 20%.

This is seen as a fair option given that workers will be getting an extra day off each week with no reduction in pay. When workers want to go away on holiday, they already have one extra day each week that they don’t need to book off anymore.

The most important thing is to speak to everyone and come to a solution which works for as many part-timers as possible. Here are some options:

• Increase the pay of staff working part-time.

• Reduce the hours of part-time staff in line with reductions for full-time staff.

• Adjust annual leave entitlement to recognise the large uplift created by a four-day week.

• Allow part-time staff to accrue extra days/time off *

• A combination of the above.

• Part-time workers are not included (during trial period only)

* For example, you could permit part-time staff to accrue hours in such a way that they would be entitled to a half-day off every 2 weeks or 1 day a month (depending on the number of days/hours they work). This option can also be incorporated into any active flexi-time working policy.

There are a number of different approaches depending on your organisation's Bank Holiday policy.

There could, for example, be a policy in place whereby Bank Holiday's (most commonly a Monday) are treated as the non-working day that week (switching from Friday).

Other options are:

• A three day week during Bank Holiday weeks

• Add Bank Holidays to annual leave entitlement to allow staff to choose when to take them

During a trial period, employment contracts are almost always left as they are and the four-day week is seen as gifted to employees, often through a more informal opt-in agreement.

When making the decision to move permanently to a four-day week, we recommend:

• Re-writing employment contracts to recognise the reduction in weekly hours and new four-day working pattern.

However, another option is to:

• Leave contracts as they are and keep the four-day week more informally in place through an opt-in agreement that can be renewed every year.

Many self-employed people already have the freedom to take a four-day week.

However, for the self-employed and zero hours contract workers on low-incomes that can't afford to take home less pay on a four-day week - we need to see wider policy changes implemented across the economy.

For example; a higher living wage, a ban on zero hours contracts and an extension of workers rights. Ultimately, implementing a four-day week with no loss in pay across PAYE sectors will put upwards pressure on legally and socially accepted wages in all sectors.

It can be done! Alongside the move to a four-day week, organisations should consider where productivity gains can be made - i.e. reducing meetings and distractions, focusing on outputs, sharing work more equally and using technology better.

If workers are struggling to get their work done in five days, then that needs to be looked at anyway.

Many organisations that were part of the four-day week UK trial noticed that 20% of most employees’ tasks were redundant or inefficient.

A rested worker is also a better worker and this is where the productivity gains are made - through greater efficiency, effectiveness, creativity and motivation at work.

It is up to the organisation. Most businesses like to take Fridays off, but some workers prefer Mondays, and some companies take Wednesdays off.

It is more than possible for different departments within larger firms to take different days off each week, rather than the whole firm having to agree on one day. This may be essential where some departments are more customer-facing.

It is also possible to spread different four-day patterns between staff members. The key thing is being flexible so that the four-day week can best suit an organisation’s needs.

Organisations have been able to successfully get around the issue of billable hours by:

• Moving partly or wholly from hourly billing to value-based or project-based fixed fee billing

• Finding efficiencies within the billable hour structure to deliver work in less time

• Maintaining billable hours by finding sufficient efficiencies in their non-billable overheads

• Some combination of the above

Measures of productivity are very much business to business dependent. For some it will be a pure revenue metric, for others it will be the number of product units sold, the number of customers won or managed, or any other measurable success metric.

The key is to ensure that, whatever the metric used, a baseline is set before embarking on a four-day week.