The UK tests the four-day work week

Louise Bloomsfield, one of the British staff who tests the four-day work week in June, says it is possible to “volunteer, learn new skills” or spend more time with family.

Pressure Drops, the brewery where he works in London, will join the massive trial with 3,000 employees from about 60 companies starting in June.

The plan, which is listed as the largest working day reduction in the world, aims to help companies reduce their working hours without reducing wages or income.

Similar tests have been carried out in Spain, Iceland, the United States and Canada, and are scheduled to begin in August in Australia and New Zealand.

Alex Sujung-Kim Pang, project director of 4 Day Week Global, a group that supports experiments, says the six-month period in the UK will benefit companies with more time to test and collect data.

Adaptation to SMEs should be easy, as large changes can be implemented quickly, he told AFP.

According to Pressure Drop, increasing the productivity and well-being of employees helps reduce the company’s carbon footprint.

A short work week is expected to attract new employees and retain the best in the UK, where unemployment is at its lowest level in nearly 50 years, with the number of registered vacancies: 1.3 million, more than the number of candidates.

Not so pink

A short working week is easy to implement in services, and the UK has an advantage in this regard, with the sector accounting for 80% of its GDP.

But for businesses like retail, food and beverages, it’s more complicated, says Jonathan Boys, an economist at the Institute for Personal Development, a human resource association.

He believes that measuring productivity will be the biggest challenge, especially in services, where most jobs are quality and less calculated than factory output.

But for Aidan Harper, co-author of the book Promoting a Four-Day Work Week (“The Case for a Four Day Week”), less-working countries produce more.

“Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands do less work than the United Kingdom and are more productive,” he points out. Greece, on the other hand, is one of the European countries with the longest working hours, but with the lowest productivity, according to him.

Phil McParlane, a recruiter at 4dayweek.io, specializes in flexible, four-hour-a-week business, said the number of companies looking to hire through his site has increased from 30 to 120 over the past two years, reflecting increased flexibility. Search for a better quality of life two years after the outbreak.