4-day week: 'Too short-staffed to work' (2024)

Nearly all firms that took part in the UK pilot are keeping reduced hours – but not all are fully embracing the new set-up.

Long-awaited data from the large-scale UK four-day workweek pilot arrived in February – and results were overwhelmingly positive.

Among the 60-plus companies that participated in the trial, from marketing agencies to financial firms, education services to fish and chip shops, 92% of employers said they would continue with a shorter workweek following the programme – with 30% making the change permanent. Among nearly 3,000 employees, 71% reported feeling reduced levels of burnout; there were also improvements in physical health and wellbeing.

In many cases, firms that participated in the pilot, organised by non-profit 4 Day Week Global, reported their workers have been able to spend more time with their families, pursue hobbies and take greater personal care.

“Our staff have had the intensity of their work ramp up following the pandemic and cost of living crisis,” explains Alison Dunn, chief executive of consumer-advice helpline Citizens Advice in Gateshead. “Burnout has been an issue, so the four-day week has given them space to decompress: we’ve had people spend their extra day off with their children, take forest walks and monetise their hobbies.”

Employers on the trial also say a truncated workweek has boosted productivity and output. “When people enjoy having an extra day off, that creates better work-life balance which, in turn, makes people happier and less stressed,” says Claire Daniels, CEO of Leeds-based digital marketing agency Trio Media. “And happier people perform better at work.”

Yet, despite these headline-grabbing results, the trial didn’t work for every business. Some firms abandoned the experiment; others haven’t yet made the move to adopt the format full-time. Even those firms continuing with reduced hours are navigating new challenges arising from shortened workweeks. Though this reflects a small portion of the trial’s participants, it means the four-day workweek isn’t an automatic solution for all.

‘We couldn’t afford to give staff one day off every week’

In June 2022, Mark Roderick’s engineering and industrial supplies company Allcap joined the UK four-day workweek trial. After operating at full tilt through the pandemic, the managing director of the Gloucester-based firm hoped that the six-month pilot programme would mean being able to offer his 40-strong team extra rest days.

“We rushed it through the business,” says Roderick. “We joined the programme late, and knew it would be a challenge implementing it across five sites. But we wanted to be able to give our staff time off during the summer.”

Rather than offer workers a three-day weekend like most of the 61 companies on the scheme, Allcap employees would have one workday off every fortnight. “We’re a trading business – customers call up all the time for manufacturing and construction components,” says Roderick. “We were already on a slightly reduced headcount, so we couldn’t afford to give staff one day off every week.”

But even with this bespoke four-day week model, Roderick says his firm quickly ran into problems. “As opposed to 10 normal workdays, we found that employees would have nine extreme ones – once they got to their scheduled day off they were exhausted. Once we factored in holidays, sickness and caring responsibilities, we also struggled to find cover for an employee on their rest day.”

As a result, Allcap abandoned its trial two months early at its three main trade sites (its warehouse and manufacturing centres have the resources to cope with a four-day week).

Alongside staffing issues, Roderick says the nature of his industry has made the four-day week harder to implement. “If you’re in professional services, you often have project-based work that affords greater flexibility in meeting deadlines. Here, we have milling machines, a trade counter and around-the-clock deliveries – working from home is impossible, so you need a minimum number of staff on site, or you don’t have a business.”

Indeed, as Allcap found, a typical trade-off for a three-day weekend is a more intense four-day workweek. “Without having a fifth day to catch up on work, there’s generally more stress now during the week in order to have a longer weekend,” says Laura White, projects and research manager at London-based charity Waterwise.

And for businesses maintaining regular opening hours, a third day off for staff usually requiresworkers covering shifts – and subsequently increased workloads. “We found that when it was someone’s turn for their day off, the buck passed to a colleague, and they were left under pressure,” says Roderick. “Someone’s absence would come up to management, so we’d effectively have to just do daily tasks – our longer-term projects and strategic work went out the window.”

Where it can fall short

For some firms, particularly customer-facing businesses, creating enough slack in the schedule for a four-day week means extra hiring costs – making it prohibitive to move forward with a new model. Dunn says Citizens Advice in Gateshead invested in the equivalent of three additional full-time employees so 45 contact centre staff could join the trial. “We didn’t want a situation where someone would be excluded from the opportunity,” she adds.

These customer-facing firms often face greater challenges in maintaining four-day workweeks. “Some employees can work extended hours during the week to catch up in order to have that extra day off,” says Dunn. “But that’s not available to our contact centre team, who have clearly defined opening hours. Their work is heavily monitored with specific KPIs set by our funder that need to be delivered – currently, they can only make marginal gains.”

Likewise, the demands of the job mean these workers have less flexibility in their third day off, says Dunn. “The busiest days at the contact centre are usually Mondays and Fridays, meaning it’s not possible for them to take time off either side of the weekend. The knock-on effect is that it leaves only three days left for staff to take their extra day off.”

Conversely, Dunn says employees outside the contact centre, who can work flexibly, have surpassed targets. “In those areas of the business, employees have knocked it out the park, exceeding KPIs and income projections. We’re left with a picture that’s not evenly spread.”

Instead of adopting or rejecting the new set-up outright, Dunn has extended Citizens Advice’s four-day week trial to May. She says unless targets are met by the contact centre team, it’s unlikely the shorter workweek will be made permanent in any part of the business. “We have 220 employees: I can’t imagine that we’d allow a four-day for some and not for others. Rather than size, the difficulties with the four-day week come in a business's complexity – when you have different ways of operating and offer varied services.”

The longer-term outlook

Alongside Citizens Advice, Waterwise and Trio Media are also extending their trials. “Six months didn’t feel long enough to make a permanent decision,” says Daniels, of Trio. “We want to see how it feels over a full year, and to ensure productivity remains high.”

Some other businesses on the scheme chose to forego a fixed four-day week, and instead offer more flexibility generally.

In one case, Jo Burns-Russell, CEO of Northampton-based creative agency Amplitude, has made the four-day week optional: employees now work a flexible, reduced 35-hour week that can be split across four or five days. “After the trial, everyone wanted to do their shorter workweek differently,” she says. “Rather than prescribe a day off, it’s better to let people choose what works best for them. As an agile company with a team of 12, it works well.”

Instead of a fixed four-day approach, Abigail Marks, professor of the future of work at Newcastle University Business School, believes this model of shortened workweeks and flexibility could bring the biggest gains to the workforce. “Without reducing the intensity of workloads and tackling overworking more broadly, a mass scale four-day week risks intensifying already intense workloads,” she says. “A six-hour workday may be more effective than a four-day week among organisations that are able to do so.”

And although 100% of firms in the trial didn’t immediately move to implement the model, the general success of the four-day week trial points to more employers acknowledging that the traditional nine-to-five isn’t working, says Marks. “It’s another experiment in the post-pandemic world of work. It’s showing that people are realising that long hours culture isn’t healthy or sustainable.”

For now, while a four-day week may be an experiment worth keeping on a permanent basis for some companies, it may not be realistic for all.

Allcap's Roderick says if he could, he’d reintroduce the four-day week at his firm. Even over-stretched workers prized their extra day off. “Even though everyone could see what was happening and were always busy, they were still disappointed when we suspended our trial,” adds Roderick. “If we could recruit more staff without a massive increase to our wage bill, we’d do it tomorrow. We were just too short-staffed to make it work.”