Full-time workers’ rights to ask for a four-day working week could be strengthened under government plans to increase flexible working.
Employees would still have to work their full hours to receive their full pay but could request to compress their contracted hours into a shorter working week, as first reported by the Daily Telegraph.
Since April, workers have already had the right to ask for flexible working as soon as they start a job but firms do not have to agree.
The government says it will not impose changes on staff or businesses, but the Conservatives say businesses are “petrified” about the plans.
Education Minister Baroness Jacqui Smith told LBC that “flexible working is actually good for productivity”.
It’s not perfect, but 4 10-hour shifts is vastly preferable to 5 8-hour ones for most people. A lot more could be done, but I would still argue this is progress…
4 ten hour days can more easily become 4 eight hour days. Working 10 hours means more breaks, more downtime, more slack during each day, and people are going to need to leave work more often to handle personal matters. If you can get everyone on board with being half-staffed on Mondays and Fridays (assuming that not everyone works the same 4 days) then you can make the argument that the additional 2 hours a day are unnecessary.
It’ll be a minor miracle if the work can be arranged so the business has 5 days continuity without people being called or summoned to work on that free day.