4 Day Week

I agree with gillybob It would not work in small businesses.

Near me are two corner shops to which I have been because they used to do the Amazon "Pass my Parcel" (now finished operating). I am overwhelmed by the extremely long hours the owners of these little Aladin's Caves work. The gentlemen are there every day all day. They receive the deliveries, stack the shelves, do the paperwork, the cleaning, get the newspapers ready for delivery, .. they must work a 17 hour day, seven days a week! I don't need to say that they are more recently settled in Britain and have to work hard since they started at the bottom. They are gracious and so helpful and by no means young. It moves me to tears to see them working so hard. What a different world they live in compared with those people represented at the TUC!

Anniebach
My immediate reaction is that this simply will not work! People will only work the extra day as overtime. What about Teachers? Will the children have different teachers on the fifth day or will they only go to school for four days a week? They won't cover the curriculum if that happens. Frankly I think it's a barmy idea.

One possible result of increasing the wages bill by 20% is that fewer people will want to be bosses of an enterprise, unless it is so big and powerful that it can absorb the extra or lose it by employing cheap labour in parts of the world where such protection doesn't exist.. This could enlarge global and international businesses to the detriment of smaller national and local ones, and feed the trend toward globalism.

Gilly That breakdown of employment costs that I found should be shown to every schoolchild about to do the week of "work experience" so that they see both sides of the work they are trying out. It will cost the employer pretty near twice what the employee gets. That fact has a direct bearing on the benefits that the worker will get should he/she need them, and the ultimate source of them is only partly their own taxes ("I have paid my taxes, I am entitled to it!") but also the levies paid by the boss for them to legally work for them. Think on that - their wages are being paid almost twice over (more than £46,000 on a £26,000 wage)

Who wouldn’t want to do 32 hours work for 40 hours pay ? Times that by every worker in the workplace and we have a huge problem .

How can they do that while keeping their prices the same without either dropping standards or operating at a loss and eventually ceasing to operate at all?

In short Elegran they can’t .

It amazes me that many people still think that all company bosses/owners are fat cats living in the lap of luxury paying their workers minimum wage. It also amazes me that many people think that when an employee is paid, say £10 per hour for 40 hours then this costs the employer £400 per week .

This hair brained idea might work in the civil service and other parts of the public sector. It may work in large high profit enterprises where there are plenty “bodies” to share the work load out but how can this possibly work in a small business always easy operating on a shoestring, that might employ say 5-10 people ?

Both my children work longer hours on a four day week
It saves childminding costs in school holidays & after school care
As this care is only needed 3 days a week not 5

I think the same arguments were used for going from a 6 day week to a 5 day week, and prior to that many worked 6 and a half day week. But in general it works ok on 5 days,I'm sure we'd cope with 4.
Also if we want older folk to work until they are 70 this would be more doable than 5.

The first paragraph was to EliseC465. While I was typing a long post, Chewbacca added a short one. Moral - be brief!

So your hours are the same, just arranged differently. Your employer has no extra costs because of the change. They may have to re-arange other people's hours as well to fit in, but the cost is the same.

What seems to come over from these proposals is that employees doing a four-day week will do fewer hours in the week for the same money - which is great for them but not for the firm that has to employ five people for every four that they employ now and pay out five paychecks and five lots of behind-the-scenes costs at as much again for every four that they pay now How can they do that while keeping their prices the same without either dropping standards or operating at a loss and eventually ceasing to operate at all?

Don't reply that they can save vast amounts by using AI, or that the bosses can give up their luxury yachts and fur-lined toilet seats. The first option only helps some firms, in the second instance only a few bosses live in that sort of luxury. Most work and live beside their employees and to assume that they are all "bloated plutocrats" is as prejudiced as assuming that someone from a council estate keeps coal in the bath and thinks Aida is a female form of aids contracted by lesbians.

I reduced my working week to 4 days. And took a pay cut. Then I reduced it to 3 days. And took another pay cut. How could any employer possibly afford to pay employees the same salary for less hours? Fair enough if the agreed contractual hours are condensed into fewer days, but otherwise it would bring employers to bankruptcy.

I’ve just negotiated a 4 day week. 2 days at home and Wednesday off but I can still do 37 hours as I start at 8am. S

Sheilasue

The point is if your daughter suddenly said to her employer I want to work a 6 day fortnight not 7 but I expect to receive the exact same pay , oh and I am not making up the hours I want those kept the exact same too what do you think would happen

Would her employer say OK . What if her employer suddenly found that the other employees decided that's a good idea I want to reduce my hours too but I won't accept a reduction in pay either? Would her employer say Oh go on then.

My daughter does what is called a 7 day fortnight. She gets every other Friday off and this was agreed with her company.
She quite looks forward to her day off, books hairdressers meets up with friends etc, and gets to have a chill out day.

There is nothing wrong in working a 4 day week!

There is nothing wrong in an agreement between an employer and employee coming to this arrangement if the business is adaptable enough to be able to deal with it. I suspect however the employer will expect the employee to work the same contracted hours of the 5 day week or accept a pro rata pay structure. Naturally if a 4 day week was contracted initially that would not apply as there is no loss to the employee or employee.

That is not the TUC proposal though as I understand it. The problem is if a business has to pay the same wage for a 4 day week for staff on a 5 day week contract but the employees hours and pay remain the same the employer has to find an immediate 20% increase in staff wages alongside a 20% decrease in production time.

It could cause businesses to close or move away from the UK unless it is a Global decision but if done unilaterally it could well see employees having 5 days a week off work, permanently.

I should have given a reference for my quote. It came from www.fsb.org.uk/media-centre/small-business-statistics

In ignoring the difficulties of small businesses, I wonder if anyone ever wonders where big businesses are meant to come from. Do they spring fully-formed from the head of a tycoon, like Athena from the head of Zeus? Do they appear out of the ocean, standing on a shell, long hair held modestly over their pubes and clutching their boobs, like Aphrodite?

No, they begin as a small business paying attention to their clients and employing a few people. After a while, if they survive, they grow into a medium-sized business, with many customers and a larger workforce, and eventually, with the benefits of bulk buying, squeezing down rates to their suppliers, and competing tightly on price and delivery (plus a great deal of luck and some preferential treatment by the powers that be as "a key industry") they become the leaders and/or monopolisers in their field.

These big employers can weather almost anything, smaller enterprises can't. If/when they go under, they won't go on to grow into big ones.

"Small businesses accounted for 99.3% of all private sector businesses at the start of 2017 and 99.9% were small or medium-sized (SMEs).
Total employment in SMEs was 16.1 million; 60% of all private sector employment in the UK. "

A 4 day week is only suited to some job roles

This

Employees doing a 4 day week doesn't mean that a business can only open for 4 days a week! Supermarket employees don't each work the 7 days that the business is open. What it means in reality, surely, is that a greater number of staff would need to be employed, each working 'part time'. That is how our business works, although employing a greater number of part time workers does bring its own issues.
Pressure to increase the minimum wage even more than currently legislated for, will finish a number of small businesses though.

A 4 day week is only suited to some job roles.

Would someone explain how builders can continue putting a roof on a barn in the winter months ? Hammer in one hand torch in the other ?

Both my daughter and my daughter-in-law work a four day week, with pay pro rata. Both find it suits them well as it gives them a day to keep their lives running smoothly, with weekends free for the family, unemcumbered by shopping or chores.

The four day week I think mean working the same umber of hours but over four days therefore making it a longer day. Many hospital staff already do this and find it really tiring and hate it. How about the extra childcare involved how will parents manage, I think it should be left to the individual to decide with their employer.

As a slow let in to my retirement, I've just dropped a day and now work a four day week (Monday is my day off) and a colleague on our team has been doing this for 6 months - her day off is Wednesday (she retires next month) . This has worked out well for us as we have others in on the other days. It depends on the work and how big the business is

Can I ask what field of work is your daughter in Skynnylynny ?