UK’s 5-Day Work Week Obsolete?

UK’s “4-day workweek pilot was so successful” 15% of the 3K employees participating say “no amount of money” would make ‘em work 5 days again. What’d happen in test for 3-day work week with same pay?

Personally, I’d give my aorta to work 4 let alone 3 days a week at the same pay level I so justly deserved. Just a guess, but wouldn’t most real Americans likely agree with their British cousins? Perhaps the more interesting fact in the Washington Post coverage of the world’s largest trial of the four-day workweek, is that a majority of supervisors as well as employees liked it so much they’ve [also]decided to keep [or, at least, extend] the 4-day work week.

The pilot was organized, WaPo says, by an advocacy group called “4 Day Week Global” in collaboration with the research group, Autonomy and researchers at Boston College and the University of Cambridge. Another question or two for the newspaper to have asked might be how many days a week do all these researchers work? And, did they ever consider their pilot’s outcome as to the employee reaction was as predictable as if asking them if they wanted a free vaca in the Bahamas? Yet, again, perhaps a bit more surprising was the reaction by the 61 diverse British companies involved, ranging from banks to fast food restaurants: “More than 90% said they would continue testing the shorter week, while 18 planned to make it permanent.” That’s presumably because worker morale & productivity was found to have improved at least to some extent without costing the companies more to get it. If true, the WaPo coverage may be taken to suggest the UK test results might run counter the experience at some US companies having tried 4-day weeks in the past and “reported [workers] struggling to get everything done in that time.” An obsolete sixpence for your thoughts?

Davd Soul