How does this work in practice? Say you’re a small business who wants a receptionist on the front desk 9-5, Mon-Fri. The working week changes to Mon-Thu, so you pay 4/5 of the receptionist’s salary, and the government scheme pays 1/5. But you still need someone on the front desk on Friday, because you can’t control which days your customers want to do business with you. But it’s tough to hire 1/5 of a person, and if you can it will come with some job-sharing inefficiencies attached to it. So you just have to swallow these inefficiencies?

Conversely, large employers can easily cope with these arrangements because of their scale and because they already have all the HR expertise and machinery required to juggle varied working patterns across larger teams.

So small business loses?

This is already a dilemma businesses face with reception desks. If you have only one receptionist, what happens when they take lunch or a bathroom break, and what happens if they call in sick for the day?

There are a number of options for front desks (whether it be an office, hotel, museum, shop or otherwise):

1. Single worker on a 10-4 Mon-Fri schedule (reduced hours across all days) and the front desk is unstaffed at lunch and during bathroom breaks. Customers have to attend during reduced hours.

2. Two or more workers with overlapping hours most of the week, but occasionally they are by themselves. There is always at least one worker at the front desk (whilst others are taking lunch or not working that day).

3. On one day of the week, another person sits at the front desk (and performs another role the other 3 days of the week they're working).

4. The business no longer has a staffed front desk. If someone is visiting you in an office, you collect them from the lobby/waiting area.

I can imagine that good will may sustain options 1-3 temporarily, but I also imagine (in the specific case of assistants and receptionists) that high tech firms will seek to remedy these problems through automation which yields option 4 long term (Cortana, Alexa, Google Assistant). It seems like we're on a course to reach a point where we replace more jobs than we add, or that the education ceiling to do the job that it's replaced with is too high (eg: it's technically advanced).

You were closed on Sunday and Monday before the change, now you just add Friday as a closed day too.

That doesn't really mesh with the "no productivity hit" arguments though. For all that knowledge workers resent the idea that being there at certain times has much impact on their output, in many vocations that's the plain and simple truth

> That doesn't really mesh with the "no productivity hit" arguments though

Sure it does. Any customers who call on Friday will quickly learn you are closed, in future they'll call mon-thurs instead. The no-productivity-hit claim is based on the fact that both businesses and customers are adaptable and quickly change their behavior to match new norms.

But the widget that would have been ordered, made, and delivered on Friday will now get delivered on Wednesday due to the backlog that built up

The widget's production and delivery has nothing to do with the receptionist, though.

Most likely the widget is being ordered online, and, since everyone knows the factory is closed on Friday, it'll be made and shipped on Monday, and delivered on Tuesday/ Wednesday, regardless of whether it was ordered Thursday or Friday.

If the factory has encountered a backlog, the mechanism for worker overtime or a 2nd shift still exists.

Or stay open seven days a week, with one day of overlap for two workers.

or decide that working week-end counts more that 3 days and there is no overlap needed.

You can rotate for the week-end shift too.

Small businesses typically have exceptions carved out (i.e. rules don't apply to companies under 50 employees).

Once the companies get larger, you just strategically set-up the work schedules such that people only show up four days a week but all shifts are covered.

> Small businesses typically have exceptions carved out (i.e. rules don't apply to companies under 50 employees).

Even if the rules don't apply to them, that means that as an employee, I can choose a small company and have to work five days, or choose a large company and have to work only four days for the same pay. This will make it even tougher for small businesses to hire workers.

I wonder how long this productivity increase lasts. From what little I know on psychology, people’s productivity and motivation increase after they get some benefit - a raise, a promotion or a bonus. Then after 6-12 months, their productivity goes back down. Could the same effect be seen with cutting down the work week from 5 to 4 days - and that all these studies were shorter than 1-2 years to fully evaluate the productivity gains?

To better explain my point of view, I am a co-owner of 10-people IT company, where we work 40 hour weeks with no overtime.

Well then it'll just become the "growing global movement" for three day workweeks after that, or 6-hour work days, etc. of course. There's no way if they just get this one thing then they'll be happy and done. See: gun control advocates

Who is "they", and why are you not a part of that group?

Well it will be interesting to see what is actually implemented. The reduced hours trial was an SNP election promise earlier in the year, and the recent news is of a report getting published rather than any official statement from the Scottish government, if I understand correctly.

I'm all for more human-friendly ideas but why do we have to go so far with our next step as a general 4-day workweek or basic universal income. Instead, guarantee that every worker has the OPTION to work part-time and also that overtime must not be a permanent condition (with heavy fines for companies who don't care). After that, we can talk about a general 4-day workweek or similar. (I know, e.g. the Netherlands are far more advanced regarding part-time work than other countries, maybe they can go further.) Go step by step.

It's a two way street, companies have the right to have fixed schedules from their workers to ensure planning and everything else goes smoothly.

It is easier and sustainable to work around four-day work schedules than to give workers the flexibility of changing their hours.

Also of note, laws and regulations around the world differ in what full time means because full time is where the benefits kick in by laws; in other words; if the worker change to part-time, then the entire benefits package can be drastically impacted.

For an example, in many companies in US, if you work less than 40 hours, then companies are not obligated to give you any benefits such as paid time off, health insurance, etc, they can mark you as a contractor and not an employee.

Changing the 40 hours down to 30 hours as full time would not allow the companies to do that. So, I rather have four-day weekend with full benefits first and then part-time would be considered anything less than 30 hours.

Your idea means that it is more likely that the employees get less benefits while still requiring 40 hours work-load as baseline.

Options are problematic because you end up with a competitive/tragedy-of-the-commons situation, where no-one really ends up having the option at all if they want an appealing job or competitive salary.

Using national-level regulation to define a "new normal" isn't what I would choose by preference, but I just don't see anything else working without side-effects undoing all of the potential advantages to employees.

Might be nice to just have extra PTO, which is a bit more flexible than a 4 day workweek. You could go from the current 5ish weeks of vacation in Europe to around 15 weeks per year. I wouldn't mind working 5 days a week during fall/winter/spring if it meant taking all summer off. I'm sure society would find a way to adjust to it. Less work would get done in the summer and more in the winter.

the point of the 4 day week is that the 5 day week is too long to be efficient/time productive

Yeah, but also perhaps the 2-day weekend is too short.

It seems way more of a stretch to have a non-regular work "week" of 8 days.

But I'm more skeptical that 5 days is too long vs 2 days is too short.

There is a gigantic difference between 2 day weekends and 3 day weekends. Literally, it's 50% longer.

From a work-week perspective, 4 days vs 5 days is only 20% shorter. And the difference is not that noticeable.

Another possible solution to achieve similar goals is to give workers ~47 Mondays and Fridays to use as vacation at their disposal.

Some people might want to have 4-day weekends for half the year. Some people might want 3-day weekends the whole year.

This is not really a logistics nightmare to plan around for non-service jobs.

Depends on the job. Desk workers, sure, you could get more done in four days than you used to in five. It's not like that for everyone else though. If your job does not involve creativity chances are you do more work in five days than could be physically done in four, unless you go from working eight hour days to ten hour days.

Yeah, I don’t quite see how reducing hours of, say, construction workers, or grocery store clerks can have little or no negative impact on productivity.

I'd say the 47-50 week work-year is too long to be efficient/time productive.

I disagree. The consistent shorter week totally helps to even out the cadence of the week. Also most businesses can’t survive if they have to give everyone an additional month and a half of PTO.

That highly depends. My company was acquired by a German parent and we now get unlimited PTO, yet I have not taken a vacation at all since last summer. When or whether you're able to, even if it's your legal right, is largely dictated by team rhythm and scheduling. I'll freely admit nobody is forcing me to never take a break, but it's hard when I know we'd fall behind (not exactly helped by the pandemic right now making it impractical to travel anywhere). If everyone was working a 4-day week, then me also working a 4-day week would be no problem.

Take as much time off as you like, yet make sure you don't fall behind on the 52 weeks per year of work we planned out for you.

>> we now get unlimited PTO

Tell them you're taking the next 15 years as PTO. If they stop paying you, sue them for securities fraud.*

*Does not constitute actual advice, legal or otherwise.

To summarize, an article which re-summarizes an article from the BBC, where both articles bestow praise on the idea and don't bother giving a single shred of a voice to anyone that thinks it's a bad idea, or from anyone with an opposing viewpoint. Journalism at it's finest, just pure, biased, opinion pieces. Articles like these aren't meant to inform, they're just pure propaganda pieces used to seed and normalize the idea in the populace. Any opposing viewpoints? No voice.

>Journalism at it's finest, just pure, biased, opinion pieces.

You apparently misunderstood what you were reading. The author is not a journalist and the article does not purport to be journalism. The author is an executive recruiter who writes a personal opinion blog hosted by Forbes.

To be fair not all types of articles have an obligation to present all opinions on the matter. If they are reporting news then in most cases they are reporting what happened and not analyzing the benefits and downsides of what happened.

Journalism is a punch-line now.

In my mind it used to be a respectable profession, but now it's just partisans against partisans. Even for issues that aren't on their face overly political.

Nice idea, but I generally was happy if it was only 5 days a week; often I went months with 6 or 7 days. How would you do coding with insane deadlines, insufficient people, terrible management, and constant changes (with no change in dates) in only 4 days?

The problem you're describing is that the business is probably not viable. In some countries what you're describing would be illegal. In others there are sometimes exemptions for tech workers (we should work to cancel those!). It is also doubtful whether such an employer is actually getting any additional productivity out of this practice.

On a personal level, the solution is to not work at this place. If that's an option. Some sort of organizing (like the U word) could help create leverage against abusive employers.

Consider that the 5 day work week is a relatively recent thing. Not too long ago everyone worked 7 days a week. The world didn't stop spinning when most people shifted to actually working 5 days a week with normal hours.

In Canada there is an endless supply of tech jobs that are 5 days a week and 8 hours per day. I am a hiring manager in a company where we care about our employees and pay them well and I can't find enough people. Partly because people prefer to work at places with a terrible work environment for various reasons (looks better on the resume, bragging rights, our work maybe isn't as exciting ...).

Actually, before the modern 5-day week, many Christians, Jews, and Muslims worked 6 days but had off on their respective holy days--- Sunday, Saturday, or Friday. Not sure what historical period you're referring to with broad 7-day work weeks.

I forget where I read this exactly, but while some religious Jewish people would not work on Saturday I don't think this was the rule. Christians seem to have no religious issue that I know of today and plenty of secular Jewish people also still work on the weekend. Anyhow, I can't find the source right now.

https://www.pbs.org/livelyhood/workday/weekend/8hourday.html

"In 1890, when the government first tracked workers' hours, the average workweek for full-time manufacturing employees was 100 hours and 102 hours for building tradesmen."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time "Before collective bargaining and worker protection laws, there was a financial incentive for a company to maximize the return on expensive machinery by having long hours. Records indicate that work schedules as long as twelve to sixteen hours per day, six to seven days per week were practiced in some industrial sites" (citation needed though)

https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours

https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/

I'd call it a "marginal" business - the kind of thing that would get killed off by this proposal. It's up to the reader to decide if this is good or bad.

> How would you do coding with insane deadlines, insufficient people, terrible management, and constant changes (with no change in dates) in only 4 days?

- Don't have insane deadlines

- have enough people

- have better management

- forbid changes after the project plan has been approved.

I have worked in one company that worked like that, or perhaps it was just one factory in that company. It works at least some of the time, or at least it did at that time (late 70s to early 80s) and place Mullard, Southampton.

In short, more suitable staffing and scoping. Hopefully I don't need to explain the arbitrary nature of the 40-hour week.

A lot of people like the idea of flexibility along with these reduced hours, but I'd actually prefer if we went to a uniform 3-day weekend with Friday off. This would have the benefit of aligning the definition of the weekend in the middle East with that in Europe and the US.

Years ago I was doing consulting work for a startup, and was able to negotiate a 4 day week. I worked 2 days at a time with Wednesday off.

My next job was as an FTE at another very early stage startup, where we were constantly working and in the office 6 days a week, with some all-nighters before demos etc.

I was vastly more productive during the 4 day week period.

That sounds like a great schedule- you could use Wednesday to do chores and errands, "life stuff" and then actually relax and enjoy the weekends!

One of the biggest perks of moving to wfh for me has been the ability to do random household chores on breaks from work during the week and now actually have weekends for relaxing instead of things like laundry and grocery shopping.

Exactly - generally I used Wednesday mornings to do life stuff, and then just unwound and relaxed in the afternoon. I was very energized for Thursday and Friday compared to my colleagues.

You use labor law to disincentivize such behavior by a business. If the business can’t successfully manage and profit with 4 work days per week, creative destruction.

I wish more people were au fait with this concept. If a small business can only exist due to paying bottom-tier wages it is perfectly OK for that business to be squeezed out of existence in short order.

From the article it isn't clear if this is a legal mandate, but perhaps it is not referring to ultra-high-paying jobs that require insane crunch schedules?

In the article, it mentions that Microsoft saw a 40% increase in productivity by allowing looser schedules, so perhaps programmers solve problems faster when they aren't staying awake 48 hours a stretch drinking Jolt* and eating pizza three meals a day?

* dated myself

Some laws in NL allow averaging out over a longer period. Its not a real example but say for example you work 3 days on average over a period of 6 months by doing 6 for the first 3 months. Its surprisingly comforting to look forwards to.

Do you run your own business? That's the only way I can understand someone choosing to work 6-7 days/week for months. I'm an employee at a FANG and have been there long enough where I effectively just work 4 day weeks for most of the year by taking Monday's off, and I am literally just as productive as I was when I worked 5 days.

"I don't understand why someone would work 6 or 7 days. I'm rich, my company pays me crazy amounts of money, and I don't work more than 4 days."

Guess everyone will have to work on adtech, surveillance and engagement-at-all-costs so they can all have 4-day-weeks and still make 5 times the national average.

Do you have any insights to OPs situation or are you just ranting?

It's not like Scotland was exactly the home of efficiency and productivity to begin with... But good for them! I look forward to visiting and taking a dram on the occasional day when they're open.