A four-day week will soon be the norm in the public sector.

By fiddling with the hours you don’t provide the full coverage of a five-person team during what the public rightly see as ‘normal working hours’. Unless something is doing purely ‘back office’ work not involving being accessible to the public or the client it may not matter if they start at 7 and leave at 4.30, 4 days a week - but if someone else in the team relies on that person, but is doing different hours and days, I foresee problems. It would not work in an industry where personal service is expected, during ‘normal hours’, and on normal working days’. It may suit a widget manufacturer very well but not, I would suggest, public-facing local authority departments and certainly not private sector services such as law firms (where I have never known fixed hours to be worked anyway, other than some admin staff).

Yes, Germanshepherdsmum, you do. 38 hours a week is 38 hours a week. The work still gets done. Obviously that was an example rota but any sensible organisation gears the maximum number of staff to the busiest period, whatever that is. In most public sector organisations that is not before 9am or after 5pm, so that is when staff can do the more complex tasks that require quiet. Your argument just doesn’t stack up I’m afraid.

Germanshepherdsmum

Do you want your local authority’s staff to only be available four days a week? The housing department, social services, etc etc?

You can't get hold of anyone now so we might not notice the difference!

Casdon

Yes, Germanshepherdsmum, you do. 38 hours a week is 38 hours a week. The work still gets done. Obviously that was an example rota but any sensible organisation gears the maximum number of staff to the busiest period, whatever that is. In most public sector organisations that is not before 9am or after 5pm, so that is when staff can do the more complex tasks that require quiet. Your argument just doesn’t stack up I’m afraid.

I think that could make childcare more, not less, difficult.

If your team of five are providing a service, my argument is sound Casdon. It’s not simply the number of hours worked, it’s the hours that the team members are available to provide the service. Clients will not expect to phone, or be visited by, your team members at 7am or 8pm. Having spent my entire career in a service industry, public and private sectors, I can assure you that what is successful for the widget manufacturer and its employees is anything but for clients whether public or private.

My daughter works in public service (a civil servant) and can work flexi-time. All her work is "back office work" - she's a manager - so she often works four day weeks. She also sometimes works 7 day weeks and 15 hour days. She has a deputy and tells me she's sometimes called in emergencies when she's not supposed to be working. Her husband is a project manager for UK Biobank and also works four day weeks, but still gets his work done. Both of them travel quite a lot for work, so having three days off work together means they have time together and enhances the quality of their lives.

PS. Neither my daughter nor her husband manufacture widgets.

I don’t think the public sector has diversified into the manufacture of widgets yet. 😁

Germanshepherdsmum

If your team of five are providing a service, my argument is sound Casdon. It’s not simply the number of hours worked, it’s the hours that the team members are available to provide the service. Clients will not expect to phone, or be visited by, your team members at 7am or 8pm. Having spent my entire career in a service industry, public and private sectors, I can assure you that what is successful for the widget manufacturer and its employees is anything but for clients whether public or private.

I don’t think you read my post Germanshepherdsmum. I did say that was an example rota. I think you have in your mind an office based function, but public servants work in hundreds of different roles, and early morning and early evening services are exactly what clients do want in many areas of their work. every service should be meeting the needs of its clients and that really is not an issue when individual members of staff work their hours over less days, unless a department has so few staff only core hours cover is possible. The modern workforce has to be flexible.

My daughter works in public service (a civil servant) and can work flexi-time.
I worked flexi-time but there were core hours when we were supposed to be there and it was over five days.
Occasionally working at weekends or Bank Holidays was necessary, sometimes working late when working to a deadline.

Your rota imposes the organisation’s and employees’ needs on the clients, which is not the way a service should work. The modern workforce has to respond to its clients’ needs rather than dictate to clients what their needs should be. All public servants, other than those in the NHS and education, technically have an office base but what is relevant is when they are available to their clients.

I also worked flexitime in one public sector role Callistemon. Same experience as yours.

Germanshepherdsmum

Your rota imposes the organisation’s and employees’ needs on the clients, which is not the way a service should work. The modern workforce has to respond to its clients’ needs rather than dictate to clients what their needs should be. All public servants, other than those in the NHS and education, technically have an office base but what is relevant is when they are available to their clients.

That is exactly what I said. Having an office base does not mean that staff don’t need to see people out of core office hours - examples are Social Care, housing, education, leisure services, environmental health, and I’m sure many more.

Working a 4 day week doesn't mean everyone works the same four days though. The business/service will continue to be as available as before if days are staggered.
As Whitewavemark2 said working 37 hours in four days is a better balance.
I appreciate this may not work for everyone.

It doesn’t work for law firms. You may have what is, or is perceived to be, a part time employee for non-contentious or non-transactional work, such as wills and probate, which clients would probably accept - but otherwise it’s a non-starter, believe me.

My cousins and her DH have a industrial company. They have been doing 4 day week for a couple of years, basically longer days and Friday off. Everyone is happy, same pay, resulted in reduced sickness and they as a company have saved on Electric bills.

Anyone who remembers the strikes of the 1970s and the three-day-week workaround will know that it’s perfectly possible to structure the week differently and get the same amount of work (or even more work) done.

Customers using different services simply get used to when a service is or isn’t available just as we used to manage before 24/7 shopping, when businesses closed at 5pm and shops closed on Wednesday afternoons and almost everything bar church was closed on Sundays.

And, as others have said, many people have worked flexible hours for years. So long as there is a core number of staff on duty during opening hours, what does it matter when someone works? Services operating 24/7 have always employed staff working shifts.

This from The Guardian 21 February 2024:

www.theguardian.com/money/2024/feb/21/four-day-week-made-permanent-for-most-uk-firms-in-worlds-biggest-trial

Most of the UK companies that took part in the world’s biggest ever four-day working week trial have made the policy permanent, research shows.

Of the 61 organisations that took part in a six-month UK pilot in 2022, 54 (89%) are still operating the policy a year later, and 31 (51%) have made the change permanent.

More than half (55%) of project managers and CEOs said a four-day week – in which staff worked 100% of their output in 80% of their time – had a positive impact on their organisation, the report found.

For 82% this included positive effects on staff wellbeing, 50% found it reduced staff turnover, while 32% said it improved job recruitment. Nearly half (46%) said working and productivity improved.

Clients may have no alternative but to accept reduced availability and the consequences in the public sector. In the private sector they will vote with their feet.

Posters seem obsessed with the concept of getting the same amount of work done in four days as in five - that is entirely possible in some sectors but it is not the objective when providing a service to people when they need and reasonably expect it to be provided.

You’ll be turning in your grave in 25 years time Germanshepherdsmum when the four day week is the norm.

Anyone who remembers the strikes of the 1970s and the three-day-week workaround will know that it’s perfectly possible to structure the week differently and get the same amount of work (or even more work) done.

😯

I remember and also remember that the public was so sick of all this that the Tories won the 1979 election.

Filthy streets?
Rats everywhere?

Casdon

You’ll be turning in your grave in 25 years time Germanshepherdsmum when the four day week is the norm.

OMG!!

Are you wishing GSM dead, Casdon? 😯
She might still be alive in 25 years time and criticising the three day week then!!

I simply think Casdon has little or no experience of providing a service to clients. I frequently worked seven days a week, so do my son and daughter in law. Client expectations increase and if you don’t serve your clients someone else will be pleased to do so.

Germanshepherdsmum

I simply think Casdon has little or no experience of providing a service to clients. I frequently worked seven days a week, so do my son and daughter in law. Client expectations increase and if you don’t serve your clients someone else will be pleased to do so.

You are 100% accurate.

Germanshepherdsmum

I simply think Casdon has little or no experience of providing a service to clients. I frequently worked seven days a week, so do my son and daughter in law. Client expectations increase and if you don’t serve your clients someone else will be pleased to do so.

Correct.

My husband's business won't work 4 days a week, if he slacked off others would call land agents in this area and begin business.

You’d be wrong then Germansheperdsmum. Unless you don’t see patients and their families as clients, are their needs somehow less urgent or important than in law? I don’t think so. Also, you’re not the only person who’s worked seven days a week whilst juggling a young family as a single mother in a highly pressured job on Gransnet you know.