It's increasingly in the news. With a new UK Government in place, there are discussions about new legislation which may give employees the right to request a shorter working week right from day one of their employment. As I understand it, employees would have the right to work compressed hours so that they didn't have to sacrifice 20% of salary. Under current legislation, employees have the right to ask but employers have the right to say no. In the new proposed legislation, as you might expect, there are exceptions where it is not 'reasonably feasible' for the reduced hours and employers would still have the right to reject a request. But those exceptions will be quite hard to define.
Examples are often given by proponents of a 4 day week of how the increased flexibility is great for productivity and where other countries (the Netherlands is always the first one mentioned) can prove that the compressed hours route is the way forwards. We'd all be happier and have a greater work life balance.
But as we have all learned since the Pandemic. Different things suit different people. It's often about stage of life where young people have very different drivers to working parents. To commute or not to commute? The pressure on businesses who do have to provide a full week of service to their clients - ensuring that there are employees available to work across the days when others are not working. Horses for Courses etc. This applies to flexible working whether we are talking about days in the office or hours and days worked.
I've read quite a bit around this and whilst in theory, the idea of a long weekend is lovely, compressed hours mean quite a stressful 4 days in the office/workplace. In fact, Asda trialled the 4 day week with regional store managers who then voted not to take-up the 4 day week. They felt too much pressure and therefore didn't enjoy their time off. Increasingly the workload would spill into the 'day off' anyway.
So my observation with the new legislation is not really about being pro or against a 4 day week. I think it's very subjective to the business, the sector they operate in, the type of roles that employees do and a whole host of other factors. What I feel more strongly about is the fact that Politicians who increasingly have spent a life in politics, are dictating too much to businesses without any real experience of commercial life. In particular, I used to wonder how Boris and several others with previous careers in Journalism could understand 'the working people' at all. I'm sorry, Boris gets it in the neck because he just likes writing and pontificating and I'm still cross about Brexit. I read this week about Amazon who are asking employees to be back in the office full time from January 2025 (this is initially in the US). The CEO, Andy Jassy, highlighted that it's better to 'invent, collaborate and to be connected to each other'. The media seem to be reporting on these stories as usual with the intention of headline grabbing and click-bait. The issue of being back in the office versus compressed hours are quite different although they obviously come under the joint banner of 'flexible working'.
My view is that we all have different goals, we enter our careers into different sectors where there are different requirements for work conditions - Doctor, Accountant, Journalist, Nurse, Creative, Teacher, Engineer etc. To a large extent, we have chosen to work in this field (certainly for professional/white collar workers) so there is an understanding from the employee of what the working conditions would entail. Surely it is the business's right to lay out their requirements for what it takes to do the job. The current legislation does give the right for the employee to request something different which is surely enough?
In our own sector of Creative Services and Marketing, I worry for the small independent agencies who are not able to provide as much flexibility as say the global networks. When I have candidates who require flexibility, I generally advise that they gravitate to the bigger agencies where they will find more scope for that flexibility - or to head in-house to the large Corporates. The profiles of individuals who choose the small indie agencies do tend to be different - looking for less bureaucracy generally! So as I started with. Horses for Courses.
I'm just a Recruiter. But I do know that Politicians are not always right.
Fiona, Sept 2024.