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United Kingdom Businesses

Four-Day Week a 'Major Breakthrough' as Most UK Firms in Trial Extend Changes (theguardian.com) 199

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
AmiMoJo writes: The vast majority of companies taking part in the world's largest trial of a four-day week have opted to continue with the new working pattern, in a result hailed as evidence that it could work across the UK economy. Of the 61 companies that entered the six-month trial, 56 have extended the four-day week, including 18 who have made it permanent. The findings will be presented to MPs on Tuesday as part of a push urging politicians to give all workers in Britain a 32-hour week. Joe Ryle, the director of the 4 Day Week Campaign, called the trial a "major breakthrough moment," adding: "Across a wide variety of sectors, wellbeing has improved dramatically for staff; and business productivity has either been maintained or improved in nearly every case."

"We're really pleased with the results and hopefully it does show that the time to roll out a four-day week more widely has surely come." At Sheffield-based Rivelin Robotics, one of the participating firms that plans to continue with the new approach, the chief product officer, David Mason, said he hoped offering a shorter working week would help with future recruitment. "It's certainly something that makes us a little bit different from the average." The UK pilot, which kicked off last June, has been promoted by 4 Day Week Global, a not-for-profit organisation founded in New Zealand, and overseen by the thinktank Autonomy and a team of academics.
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Four-Day Week a 'Major Breakthrough' as Most UK Firms in Trial Extend Changes More

Four-Day Week a 'Major Breakthrough' as Most UK Firms in Trial Extend Changes

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  • Hawthorne Effect? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TJHook3r ( 4699685 ) on Tuesday February 21, 2023 @09:55AM (#63311225)
    I wonder if this pilot is demonstrating the Hawthorne Effect - essentially, that most changes to any work variable result in an uplift in productivity? Of course there is also the fact that workers that are part of such a trial are presumably very motivated to make the trial a success and long-term effects may perhaps differ

    • Probably not (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Tuesday February 21, 2023 @10:44AM (#63311409) Homepage Journal

      I wonder if this pilot is demonstrating the Hawthorne Effect - essentially, that most changes to any work variable result in an uplift in productivity? Of course there is also the fact that workers that are part of such a trial are presumably very motivated to make the trial a success and long-term effects may perhaps differ

      Probably not.

      The start of this trial was described in the book "Stolen Focus" if anyone's interested. In that case, the company had really good pre-existing metrics on productivity (something about legal document processing - wills and deeds and such) and reduced hours to 32 instead of 40, with the promise that the change would be permanent if productivity didn't increase.

      What they found was the employees had the same productivity: people did more work in less time, but this didn't burn people out as one might expect. The extra day to "unwind" had a measurably good effect on wellbeing, the employees had extra time to do errands, shopping, and such and so had less stress, and lots of beneficial follow-on effects.

      The brain has a neurotransmitter that gets used every time you make a decision or take an action (I believe it's norepinephrine), and you have an amount available for use each day that gets replenished at night. A little bit gets used when you make any decision, even a decision not to do something: if you're working and the front door rings and you know someone else will get it, that decision (not to go to the front door) still uses up a little bit.

      It's sort of like a bank account of action potential, and you "withdraw" an amount during the day to handle affairs, and an amount is added at night with you're asleep. If you withdraw more than gets added back at night, the total amount goes down and you start to have days where you run out before the day is over. If you do this a lot you begin to have days where the majority of your time is feeling tired and stressed, and you have to take a few days off to recover.

      This is why lots of people come home and don't have the energy to do things, even though their daily activities were not physically demanding. It's why taking a few days off will make you feel better: so long as the days off are less stressful you can start to recover your reserves.

      It's looking like the optimal work week for humans is less than the 40 hour week we're used to.

      • Re:Probably not (Score:5, Interesting)

        by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Tuesday February 21, 2023 @11:51AM (#63311667) Homepage

        We know that the optimal work week is much less than 40h/week. We spent most of our time on Earth as hunter-gatherers and could get by working 15-20h/week to sustain ourselves.

        Agriculture was a really shitty development in terms of people's free time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The Hawthorne Effect has been described as a "glorified anecdote", because there is little real evidence to support it. It's also not known, for example, how long it lasts. Given these trials were quite long it seems like any temporary benefits would have already gone, especially once it became clear that it was working well and management was happy with the arrangement.

      Beware of this, it's often used as an excuse to avoid improving working conditions, and has little to no scientific basis.

  • I haven't heard of any blue collar jobs doing this sort of thing. Or even retail. Let alone restaurant work.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It basically applies mostly to mental work. The thing is that you cannot do mental work well without significant rest periods and mental work done badly results in significant follow-up cost. So there is a huge gain all around to be had. For manual work, a similar effect exists but it is less pronounced and the point were more work per week does not mean more productivity productivity per week is placed later.

      The (very old and very solid) facts are roughly 30h/week for mental work and 40h/week for manual wo

      • When were large-scale studies done on the effect of less than 40-hour weeks on manual labor productivity to establish such a claim? I've never heard of any.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          In Britain during WWII. The conclusion was that 40 hours a week, eight hours a day was the optimum productivity point for factory workers.

          While being bombed and under threat of invasion by Nazis.

          There is other research that suggests a different environment, different goals, and different timeframe might lead to a different optimum. This study, for example, which included factory and construction workers, among others.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      The study included construction and manufacturing, arts and entertainment, and retail. From the report:

      People in non-profits and professional services had a larger average increase in time spent exercising, while those in construction/manufacturing had the biggest increases in mental health and job satisfaction, and enjoyed the largest reductions in burnout and sleep problems.

  • So for blue collar, I don't see how you get more productivity. I doubt they sped up the assembly line. And earlier today a post about the UK increasing labor participation rates since they are short labor hours. How do you cut the hours of an already short of labor region? I am even a bit dubious of the white collar productivity increase. I worked in a startup years back and 40 hrs would have been unacceptable. We had a standing status meeting on saturday. I worked 7 days a a week typically and would not ha

    • In other words, you didn't exhaust yourself in the time you worked because otherwise, your 50+ working hours would have had a noticeably lower productivity than your first 30 hours.

      Slacker!

      • I think the key here is for some work is play. I am a true nerd that actually likes doing technical stuff. So for me 70+ hour work weeks were not really work. But I know I am different, and people paid me well for that difference. I still believe for blue collar it is widget count you are paid for. The line moves at a certain speed and you have to keep up or are terminated. So losing 20% of the hours means 20% loss of productivity. I've no illusion blue collar workers are there enjoying their work.

        • Look, I do what I really enjoy and I am also pretty good at it, but that also means that I put my mind to it and that in turn means that after 10 hours of concentrated work, my ability to concentrate deteriorates. It has nothing to do with whether you like doing something or not, someone who likes working out also can't do that for 10 hours straight and expect to be as fresh and ready to give 100% as he was when he began this morning.

          • During a 12 hour day, I might have done a dozen different tasks. Some requiring short activities like rewiring some ethernet 10baseT connections, adding a new drive or memory to longer duration activities like writing some new X interface code or debugging why something that worked on sparc's did not work on hp's. Varied tasks kept me interested and fresh. In some ways it is no different than making dinner, cleaning, washing clothes, ... after work. I guess I grew up during a time when parents did not get t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jbengt ( 874751 )

      I worked 7 days a a week typically and would not have been more productive working less hours.

      I guarantee that productivity as measured in output per hour would have gone up for you if you worked fewer days per week.
      Unfortunately, the company bean counters usually think in output per dollar paid for labor, so, if you were on a straight salary with no pay for hours over 40, in that sense you may be right.

      • I was in the early phase of the startup. Less than 10 people. I had skin in the game, which makes for motivation. And no output would not have gone up anywhere near what was necessary. I had so many hats as an early guy jack of all trades. As I said, when you keep doing a diverse set of tasks, and you like tech, it is not work. And it definitely paid off, very happy with the experience.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Well, think about it this way: take those factory workers and make them work 24 hours a day. Do you see how productivity might be lower?

      This study reported that manufacturing workers experienced the greatest decrease in burnout and sleep problems and greatest increase among job satisfaction among industries participating. You might well be able to make the assembly line go faster with well-rested, motivated workers. You might also make it up in fewer defects.

      • Where did I suggest factory workers 24 hours a day. You take it to an absurdity. So if we only made factory workers come in for an hour would they be even more efficient? You need labor to make society work. 8 is actually quite low historically. Society has gotten more efficient in basic needs, hence how we can get down to 8. Or did we? How many of those invisible people work way more than 8? The people picking the crops, the roofers, the carpenters, the foreign labor that ends up in the west as products?

  • In the US, corporations are celebrating the return of the 12 hour workday. Those lazy Europeans! We'll beat them for sure!

    Six months later: "Well, we didn't meet our revenue targets, so we're going to have to lay off half of you..."

    One wonders why anyone would work 50% more hours unpaid, for a company which will show its gratitude by laying them off. Maybe Europeans aren't lazy, but more realistic about the long term success of their employers. For example, Twitter laid off half its work force, whi

  • As long as it stays 4 8s. None of this 4 10s shit.

  • Claiming productivity gains for ourselves (Score:4, Insightful)

    by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Tuesday February 21, 2023 @10:58AM (#63311473)

    Once upon a time we took the productivity improvements brought by industrialization and automation and used them to make all of our lives better with things like the 40 hour work week. The last half century has seen massive improvements to productivity while all the benefits have been kept by our affluent, hence our shrinking middle class, bloated stock market, and ever more affluent upper class. It's about time we started claiming some of these gains for ourselves again.

  • That won't work well in transport. In the UK the average working week as a truck driver is 55hrs excluding breaks, we can have done 30hrs by the time we park up on day 2. A 32hr week would require pretty much doubling the number of truckers in the UK and given the shortage of truck drivers not just in the UK but the EU and pretty much the entire first world that's not going to happen.

  • First, color me skeptical. I definitely get less accomplished on weeks I take Friday off, even if I push to be more efficient Monday through Thursday. I suspect there's self-selection, confirmation bias, or effort justification going on. I could be wrong.

    Second, and I keep coming back to this, if this is such a win, why go to Parliament "to give all workers in Britain a 32-hour week"? There's nothing but habit and tradition keeping companies and workers negotiating this today. Hearing these results, compani

  • If 4 is better than 5, surely 3 will be even better!

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