https://archive.is/dBUUu

Efforts to increase productivity hold lessons for sceptics, too

If Liz Truss can compress a whole premiership into seven weeks, why can’t a standard working week be squashed into something more compact? A six-month pilot scheme, in which around 3,300 workers from 70 companies are testing out a four-day workweek, is due to conclude this month. Proponents say a shorter week delivers a better work-life balance without hurting overall output. Like previous such experiments, it is likely to be hailed a success. A mid-point survey by the trial’s organisers—researchers at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and Boston College, the 4 Day Week Campaign, a non-profit, and Autonomy, a British think-tank—found that the transition had worked well for 88% of surveyed companies.

Sceptics might observe that the companies involved are self-selecting. Roughly one in five employers who had signed up dropped out before the pilot began, according to the 4 Day Week Campaign. Most of the participants that remain are smaller companies, many of them agencies specialising in management and technology. They also include charities.

But the scheme holds useful lessons about productivity. In particular a four-day week forces firms to think harder about time management. Most businesses in the trial have encouraged employees to leave meetings when they are not contributing, and to be more selective about accepting invitations. Daryl Hine of Stellar, an asset-management company in London, calls this a “diary detox”. This also extends to reducing commutes.

Of the participating organisations, 46% reported maintaining overall output at the same level, and 49% said it had improved. The trial’s largest company, Outcomes First Group, a children’s education and care provider, tracks indicators for its 1,027 participating employees. Its hr department has goals for response time to emails; it staff are given so-called net promoter scores, which track how colleagues rate their services. On both counts, they have made “rare” leaps, says Sharon Platts, the company’s chief people officer. Participants say that their employees feel more motivated. Plenty use the extra day to get errands out of the way before the weekend.

Becoming a four-day operation can be hard in a five-day world, however. Bookishly, an online shop, chose Wednesdays off to avoid having three days in a row when packages are not mailed out; people are warned about the new schedule before they order. But customers are not always prepared to wait, so most firms in the scheme have tried to spread staff more thinly. Platten’s, a fish-and-chip shop in Norfolk, gives its 50-or-so employees two days on and two days off to cover the week. Shifts overlap at busy periods, but organising training and team events has become trickier as a result.

More tests are on the horizon. In January South Cambridgeshire District Council will become the first British local authority to try out a four-day week. The lessons learned are likely to be valuable even if the idea does not spread. Mr Hine says that if performance slips, “gift days” will be rolled back. In busier periods employees may need to come in more. But in one way or another, he says, a slimmer work schedule is “here to stay”. ■7

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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "On the fifth day, errands"

The following submission statement was provided by /u/esprit-de-lescalier:

https://archive.is/dBUUu

Efforts to increase productivity hold lessons for sceptics, too

If Liz Truss can compress a whole premiership into seven weeks, why can’t a standard working week be squashed into something more compact? A six-month pilot scheme, in which around 3,300 workers from 70 companies are testing out a four-day workweek, is due to conclude this month. Proponents say a shorter week delivers a better work-life balance without hurting overall output. Like previous such experiments, it is likely to be hailed a success. A mid-point survey by the trial’s organisers—researchers at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and Boston College, the 4 Day Week Campaign, a non-profit, and Autonomy, a British think-tank—found that the transition had worked well for 88% of surveyed companies.

Sceptics might observe that the companies involved are self-selecting. Roughly one in five employers who had signed up dropped out before the pilot began, according to the 4 Day Week Campaign. Most of the participants that remain are smaller companies, many of them agencies specialising in management and technology. They also include charities.

But the scheme holds useful lessons about productivity. In particular a four-day week forces firms to think harder about time management. Most businesses in the trial have encouraged employees to leave meetings when they are not contributing, and to be more selective about accepting invitations. Daryl Hine of Stellar, an asset-management company in London, calls this a “diary detox”. This also extends to reducing commutes.

Of the participating organisations, 46% reported maintaining overall output at the same level, and 49% said it had improved. The trial’s largest company, Outcomes First Group, a children’s education and care provider, tracks indicators for its 1,027 participating employees. Its hr department has goals for response time to emails; it staff are given so-called net promoter scores, which track how colleagues rate their services. On both counts, they have made “rare” leaps, says Sharon Platts, the company’s chief people officer. Participants say that their employees feel more motivated. Plenty use the extra day to get errands out of the way before the weekend.

Becoming a four-day operation can be hard in a five-day world, however. Bookishly, an online shop, chose Wednesdays off to avoid having three days in a row when packages are not mailed out; people are warned about the new schedule before they order. But customers are not always prepared to wait, so most firms in the scheme have tried to spread staff more thinly. Platten’s, a fish-and-chip shop in Norfolk, gives its 50-or-so employees two days on and two days off to cover the week. Shifts overlap at busy periods, but organising training and team events has become trickier as a result.

More tests are on the horizon. In January South Cambridgeshire District Council will become the first British local authority to try out a four-day week. The lessons learned are likely to be valuable even if the idea does not spread. Mr Hine says that if performance slips, “gift days” will be rolled back. In busier periods employees may need to come in more. But in one way or another, he says, a slimmer work schedule is “here to stay”. ■7

For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in Britain, sign up to Blighty, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "On the fifth day, errands"

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/117yj5w/a_pilot_scheme_to_trail_the_fourday_workweek_in/j9edbgu/

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> Bookishly, an online shop, chose Wednesdays off to avoid having three days in a row

Completely ruins the point for most workers. You’re not getting any additional consecutive time off compared to before, and you have two “Mondays” every week where you will spend part of your day off thinking about going back to work.

> Becoming a four-day operation can be hard in a five-day world

Your business can remain a 5 day operation with half the employees working M-Th and half working T-F. This keeps you fully staffed three days out of the week.

The headline of the article should say “trial,” not “trail.”

Any plan in the UK government is called a scheme, but in the US we use scheme to almost exclusively mean a negative. In the US "Scheming" means something similar to planning to scam someone.

It’s like that on the website too. No one copy edits their AI articles.

As you say, scheme is just another word for plan (like a schematic is a diagram).

Its most commonly used in conjunction with government, but at times you'll see it used in business - health care scheme, pension scheme, etc.

We also use it in the negative sense - scheming is getting together to plan something untoward or underhanded.

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