Are four-day working weeks on the horizon?

Back in 2022, a pilot scheme was introduced across the UK for organisations to trial a four-day working week, whereby employers who signed up would see how working four days, instead of five, may benefit the organisation as a whole as well as their employees.

Taking stock earlier this year, the results of the trial were very favourable for the continuation of a four-day working week, with 51% having permanently adopted the change and 89% still operating the four-day policy a year after starting the trial. It’s worth highlighting that employees’ pay was not pro-rated; they still received five days’ pay for four days’ work.

Fast forward to today and, with a view to improving flexibility for workers in the UK, the Government have said they are considering introducing the right for all full-time employees to be able to request a four-day working week. Note, however, that the request would be to work condensed hours i.e. work their hours over four days instead of five for the same pay. This is not the same as the aforementioned trial.

More importantly, the right to request a condensed working week is already in place under the existing right to request flexible working regime (employees can now request flexible working from day-one). Therefore, if an employee wants to work extra hours over four days and take the fifth day off, they could make such a request under the existing rules. However, under current legislation, the employer is not obliged to consider the request’s feasibility and can reject it for business reasons that will be difficult for the employee to challenge.

Currently, it’s not clear what the Government’s proposal is – it may be to change the legislation around making a flexible working request to strengthen employees’ rights to request condensed hours given their intention to make ‘flexible working the default…except where it is not reasonably feasible’. In any event, the Government have been very keen to stress that any changes to existing employment legislation would be ‘consulted on, working in partnership with businesses’.

Any proposed changes could make refusing a four-day working week request more difficult for employers. This would be due to employers having to fully assess the feasibility of a request and they would likely only be able to turn them down if there is a good business case for doing so, which employees will be able to challenge should their request be rejected. A good business case for rejecting a four-day working week request could likely be more applicable in hospitality or retail, where the nature of the work means that shift patterns are more likely needed to be spread over five days, whereas in office jobs it is more feasible that work could be compressed into four longer days.

However, compressed hours may not be the best solution for all employees (or businesses). It would involve employees working longer days, and in safety critical roles, for example, this may not be appropriate for health, welfare and safety reasons.

What employers need to know

Employers should get ready to review the way that flexible work requests are considered if and when any new legislation is implemented. This will need to consider the ‘feasibility’ test and any new guidance as to what that might mean when the draft legislation is published.