Atom Bank Introduces Four-Day Work Week Without Cutting Pay (bbc.com) 28
The online bank Atom Bank has introduced a four-day work week for its 430 staff without cutting their pay. The BBC reports: Employees now work 34 hours over four days and get Monday or Friday off, when previously they clocked up 37.5 hours across the whole week. Boss Mark Mullen told the BBC it was inspired by the pandemic and would help improve wellbeing and retain staff. However, employees will have to work longer hours on the days that they are in.
Atom was one of the UK's first digital challenger banks and had 2.7 billion pounds of loans on its books in the last financial year. Its new working arrangements kicked in on 1 November after a review found they would not affect customer service or productivity. Mr Mullen said the new arrangement was voluntary, but strongly reflected his staff's preferences for more flexible working. "Everyone is expected to stick to it," he added. "I can't be sending my staff emails on a Friday, I can't expect to them to respond to them."
Atom was one of the UK's first digital challenger banks and had 2.7 billion pounds of loans on its books in the last financial year. Its new working arrangements kicked in on 1 November after a review found they would not affect customer service or productivity. Mr Mullen said the new arrangement was voluntary, but strongly reflected his staff's preferences for more flexible working. "Everyone is expected to stick to it," he added. "I can't be sending my staff emails on a Friday, I can't expect to them to respond to them."
Benefits (Score:2, Troll)
34 hours is still quite a lot, but since it's over four days I can see this being attractive. Great way to hire the best people, few other companies offer that kind of benefit.
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It seems British companies are kinda desperate to get personnel. First the truck drivers, then the story about trying to attract Nobel Prize laureates, and not getting any, and this...
I mean, don't get me wrong, it sounds very interesting, and I'm fairly sure they, like every bank, would want to hire someone with 15+ years of experience in security, financial auditing and law, but... is there something I don't know about the UK work situation?
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There are massive shortages in many industries. It's not just the money, there just aren't the people available at any price.
Things have been getting worse since 2010, but look a real nose dive in 2016 with the referendum.
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If people aren't available at any price, then why offer incentives like these? Does time not equal money?
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If people aren't available at any price, then why offer incentives like these? Does time not equal money?
Generally to keep the ones you have. Most people don't like job-hunting, so giving them a little perk here or there can tip the balance from 'leave' to 'remain'.
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Re:Benefits (Score:4, Interesting)
Only if you think of life as being how much money you make. Granted a lot of people on /; do think that, but other people do value time over money. Time to play video games with friends, or time to do things that need to get done during business hours and such. Or if you have a family, time ot spend together doing stuff with them..
Preferences vary - I think the US is going through Thanksgiving this week, but you'll find there are people working through it for various reasons. Some people just want the money and have no reason to take the time off. Others want the time off. If you're big enough, you'll have enough employees who want money over time and thus keep things going while others value time over money.
It's why when the company started allowing people to cash out their vacation days, I never did it. I get paid the same amount, but if I cashed out, I lost 50% in taxes. That's around 3 hours or so. Or I could have it as a vacation day, and have the full 8 hours off.
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Money is all they have to offer really.
Take the driver shortage. The conditions in the UK are exceptionally bad. We have limited facilities for heavy goods vehicle drivers, and those facilities are poor. The government isn't interested in upgrading them, and most of them are privately run anyway. Their business model is basically that you are travelling long distance and don't want to spend much of your hard earned money, so no matter how bad their service you will take it.
Some places are offering drivers 7
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... is there something I don't know about the UK work situation?
If you're moving from America you'll get more holidays (that is their word for vacation) but you will probably live in London, which is very expensive.
You'll also have to learn to speak English, which is similar to your American, but not quite the same and can be confusing.
For instance, if someone asks if you've got a fag, they're not coming on to you.
Also football is played using the feet, except when they use their head which you might not be used to, and a Cricket match might last a whole week if
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It seems British companies are kinda desperate to get personnel. First the truck drivers, then the story about trying to attract Nobel Prize laureates, and not getting any, and this...
I mean, don't get me wrong, it sounds very interesting, and I'm fairly sure they, like every bank, would want to hire someone with 15+ years of experience in security, financial auditing and law, but... is there something I don't know about the UK work situation?
Um, there are stories about labor shortages of all sorts pretty much everywhere. It's kind of a thing.
But yes, we know you hate brexit. Thanks for that shocking update.
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Me? I'm not against Brexit at all. I just wish more moochers would gtfo of the union.
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Maybe I should move there.
Here in the US, if you are offered a 4 day work week, they still want 40 hours, so it turns into 10 hour days.
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Try to stop someone in the UK or Australia taking two weeks off at a time and they will either a) resign, b) report you to the relevant ombusdman, c) deck you or d) all of the previous
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Interesting that this was modded troll. What is that, some kind of Protestant work ethic rubbish, or just an idiot with mod points?
Standard working week in the UK is 37.5 hours. In France it's 35 hours. Part time is generally considered to be less than about 30 hours.
Meanwhile, hospital personnel in certain countries (Score:2)
How does email work? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Everyone is expected to stick to it," he added. "I can't be sending my staff emails on a Friday, I can't expect to them to respond to them."
They will respond if they work on a Friday, otherwise they will respond on Monday. E-mails don't just disappear, and e-mail isn't for instant response. You IM or call or walk over if you need that.
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"Everyone is expected to stick to it," he added. "I can't be sending my staff emails on a Friday, I can't expect to them to respond to them."
They will respond if they work on a Friday, otherwise they will respond on Monday. E-mails don't just disappear, and e-mail isn't for instant response. You IM or call or walk over if you need that.
Correct. Also, there's rotation of employees or schedules. We do this in IT all the time, who works when to cover for someone who isn't available.
A company workforce can be divided into teams, some working Monday-Thursday, and others Tuesday-Friday schedules. Many companies have been doing this for a long time: think nurses who work 13 hours a day for three days, while getting four weeks off. They typically rotate so that there's always a team of nurses available all 7 days a week (while ensuring everybod
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email is for communicationrequire instant response.
Automate everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone taking either Monday or Friday off gently forces every process in the company to be either automated, or to never depend on a single person, which is a Good Thing.
Too many companies took the lazy path to cost cutting by slowly reducing staff until many processes eventually have single point of failures upon a few critical staff, and no extra resource left to improve/automate things. Then when those critical staff leave or otherwise incapacitated, business was disrupted.
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That's been the basis of these new "challenger" banks from the very start. Do things differently, often online or app only with no physical branches and almost everything automated. Lower overheads compared to traditional banks.
In response a lot of the older banks have been closing branches and trying to move everything online. They kinda suck at it, their apps tend to be pretty poor and they make actually doing stuff and getting answers online very difficult.
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If an entire bank can run with just 430 people, then they're obviously quite into automation/technology. I have no personal experience of them, but I hear good things.
The usual banking "method" is to offer some products that suit the masses, then to cover up for all the edge cases with manual work and manual support services. The thinking being that the majority will subsidise all of this manual work. It's why most bank customers "hate" their banks because on the one time in 10 years something went wrong, i
Why just Monday or Friday (Score:2)
First off, that guarantees that half of your staff are gone two days out of the week.
Second, if it catches on (which would be great) it introduces new problems... one of the great things about this is that it allows you to simultaneously have a job and also go to businesses that keep what is ironically referred to as "banker's hours", so those businesses will have big spikes of activity on Mondays and Fridays, which isn't efficient or pleasant for anyone.
Third... Wednesdays suck.
I guess it depends in part o
Downtime (Score:2)
To paraphrase Susan Ertz:
"Millions long for a 34 hour work week who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon."
Longer day is a no-brainer for most. (Score:2)
However, employees will have to work longer hours on the days that they are in.
By my napkin math they were working five, 7.5h days. Now they'll be working four, 8.5 hour days. Sounds good to me. Where do I sign up?