Agreed. Hasn't everyone been rubbishing France for years for moving in that direction ?
4 day working week with no loss of pay
- Thread starter Brian
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Agreed. Hasn't everyone been rubbishing France for years for moving in that direction ?
I’ve been both self-employed and salaried over the years - nobody’s better off, really. Salaried workers also do large amounts of unpaid work, especially in clerical and technical jobs, but have a lot less flexibility in when that unpaid work is done. Self-employment also allows you to recoup your work expenses far more easily: I have had employers who refused even basic subsistence payments for out-of-hours work, or who insisted I undertake long-distance travel on weekends without compensating me for the loss of my free-time - they didn’t stay employers much longer, though. Plus, the file-and-pay tax regime can really benefit you financially if you’re able to budget when compared to PAYE.
On the other hand, the surety of income for the next 12 months (most private-sector “permanent” jobs are just rolling annual contracts) you get with salaried employment is something most self-employed workers can only dream of, especially when you try to get a mortgage, and if you do find yourself unemployed, you can at least get what meagre support the state offers; self-employed people on the other hand are never considered unemployed without proof of cessation of trading.
On the original point, for “office work”, moving from 5 x 8 hours to 4 x 8 hours probably would increase productivity overall, but it’s not a magic bullet: to get the benefits would also require considerable workplace culture changes, such as a rigid enforcement of those work hours and an end to out-of-hours business communications, to prevent the new four-day week becoming 4 x 10+ hours a week.
A friend of mine with decades of project management experience in finance, telecoms, pharma and IT businesses reckons on about 25~30 hours of productivity per employee per week when assessing resources, regardless of the number of hours actually spent “at work”. I would concur: I have done jobs where I put in 60+ hour weeks consistently, and I might have even been productive for 50 of those hours at first, but after a while, fatigue sets in, and you’re back down to lower net productivity due to a higher rate of errors. Then, after whatever deadline is met, there’s invariably a crash period, where total productivity tanks, sick-leave ticks up, and the employer ends up paying off those extra hours at a very high interest rate. (To add insult to injury, whenever an employee gets wise to the stupidity of the company’s death-march practices and quits, they call it “burn out”)
Tony L
Administrator
I’ve not had a day off in 20 years! Either that or every day is a day off!
farfromthesun
pfm Member
They barely work beyond 3.30pm - 4pm either.
I definitely do longer hours now I am largely working at home (10hrs +) - I certainly get more done.
However it's very, very obvious that during the more hectic weeks, where I may pull a couple of 12 hour days, the Friday becomes more or less a write off, with only the bare bones getting done. I just don't have the energy (physical or mental) to keep ploughing on at the same intensity as I did towards the start of the week, so in some ways, I already am doing a four day week and previous posts that point out that it's not the time we spend but what we output are absolutely spot on. I also agree that flexibility, the worker feeling as though they have a semblance of control over their work and life balance are unarguably positives for employers and employees alike. Would fully support 4 days weeks for everyone. Life is too short.
Spraggons Den
pfm Member
I don't think so - the 4 day week for full pay (based I think on 32 hours labour) is being pushed by my union in my workplace.
snowflake
Former Albino Ape
There is a saying that if you enjoy your job you never have to work a day in your life, unfortunately I don't.
S
We spend a lot of summer on 70 or 80 hours; pressure's just coming off now.
Catch up on holidays in the winter.
It's quite a lot more than SFA! I guess that's why we have no problems getting staff when required.
Weekender
pfm Member
Likewise...31 years of purgatory and low level mental health issues.
No more thank f.
Ponty
pfm Member
It’s horses for courses really. Many who are self employed couldn’t possibly work for someone else and vice versa. My wife is a good example of this. She’s been trying to early retire for several years but keeps being asked to get involved in stuff which interests her. She’s effectively working every waking minute, weekends, holidays, the whole time really, because when she gets involved in something, she’s totally focused and committed, her brain is constantly problem solving. Which is why people want her involved. Work is a state of mind for her, she’s unemployable in the traditional sense of the word and simply wouldn’t work for somebody else.
I think the point has been made above about horses for courses. Regarding building trades, especially wet trades outside in all weathers, the wear and tear of a lifetime of labour is ultimately debilitating and long before retirement gives some relief. As a society we have to factor in the impact and make/give allowances as appropriate. As an ex chippy who started as his dad's plastering labourer at 14, I have legacy health issues associated with that work and I left the sector much earlier than most. I even spent time as a volunteer benefits advisor helping an awful lot of 50 plus manual workers get Incapacity Benefit or appeal decisions. The conditions they presented with were roughly similar and could be addressed by due consideration. The EU saved the health of countless manual workers when they introduced 25Kg lifting limits on building materials such as cement in spite of vocal opposition.
For those interested, the first 8 hour day in Europe was achieved largely by the anarchists/syndicalists of Spain and they didn't get it by lobbying their MP. Franco came along soon after and annihilated them.
No problems, you don't need to explain yourself to me. As a semi commercial beekeeper now, I know all about summer- when it was 40 degrees in the shade it was more like 45 inside a triple layered beesuit with no way to mop one's brow. But did I grumble? You bet I did, but I'd lose a couple of pounds sweating so not all bad. Unless one was downwind of course.....
Andy Stephenson
pfm Member
I was talking to a lad I knew many years ago whose workplace ran a 12 hours a day, 3 days a week, 2 shift system.
Month 1 would be 6.00 am to 6.00pm mon to wed.
Month 2 would be 6.00am to 6.00pm thu to sat.
At the end of the second month you would revert to the first month's hours.
The advantage with this is that you're only commuting 3 times a week, and at the end of the first month you're off from 6.00pm wed to 6.00am thu of the following week. A week off every second month and a four day weekend every week!
Andy
Month 1 would be 6.00 am to 6.00pm mon to wed.
Month 2 would be 6.00am to 6.00pm thu to sat.
At the end of the second month you would revert to the first month's hours.
The advantage with this is that you're only commuting 3 times a week, and at the end of the first month you're off from 6.00pm wed to 6.00am thu of the following week. A week off every second month and a four day weekend every week!
Andy
Mike Reed
pfm Member
Think that was led by a chap called Manuel Labor.
Many moons ago when I used to go out working with my dad at weekends, we would often travel along the A4 under the elevated section of the M4 heading toward Chiswick roundabout. On one of the concrete supports, in 3ft letters was the slogan 'F%#k W@rk', it had a huge resonance on this 15 year old kid.
JensenHealey
pfm Member
I worked an even more complicated shift system in a 6-week rotation as a computer engineer at ICL. It was a grand mixture of all hours and lengths (some 8hr, some 12hr, some odd hours too. Nights were all 12hr - if you are going to work nights, since you can do bugger in all in the day light hours, you might as well clock up the hours. But it did give a 6-day block entirely off and a 4 day one too as well some shorter gaps. I worked out once that I could, in theory, spend less than 1/2 my time in Manchester actually doing work. For the rest of the time, I could be elsewhere. And I did travel a lot that way. Oh..... and the shift premiums being paid outweighed the income tax I was being charged too!
Joe Hutch
Mate of the bloke
It was Adam and Eve who screwed it all up. All they had to was not eat the fruit from one tree, but could they resist the temptation to do so? No they could not. Hence all the work/sweat of brow stuff. Mind you, God being omniscient knew how it was all going to pan out, so actually it all His fault.
JensenHealey
pfm Member
It's a bit tricky for companies that have machines running 24 hours a day and need personnel around at all times.
