Less is more – a four day working week

According to a recent study, which included 61 companies and organisations across the country, a four-day working week is the way to go.

The experiment, which ran for six months from June 2022, included 2,900 employees who were only required to work for four days out of the week and at full pay.

All of which would result in roughly 20% loss of productivity right? On the contrary, the results of the study showed that there was no loss of productivity for companies and actually, staff were significantly happier and less stressed and took less sick days.

Out of the 61 companies that took part, 56 decided to extend the arrangement and 18 have switched to a permanent four-day week.

And how did the workers fill their time on their paid day off? Some relaxed, some took care of ‘home admin’ and others decided to improve their skills through additional training.

Would this work for the glass and glazing industry? Personally, I find it very hard to imagine anyone running a busy fabrication or installation business welcoming the idea of paying their staff for five days and only getting four days’ work!

However, it could be possible, with a well-planned system of shifts, to keep the factory floor running at 100% or without getting behind on the installations. And it may be the case that for those four days that staff do come to work, they’re absolutely up for it and return 150% in positive hard graft.

Who’s willing to give it a go?

Let me know your thoughts by emailing luke@glasstimes.co.uk