News: Good news for UK employees! 200 companies sign up for 4-day workweek

Employee Relations

Good news for UK employees! 200 companies sign up for 4-day workweek

When industry leaders in India are advocating for long working hours, UK companies are setting an example by allowing their employees to work just for four days in a week without any salary loss.
Good news for UK employees! 200 companies sign up for 4-day workweek

At the time when Infosys founder Naryana Murthy and Larsen & Toubro Chairman SN Subrahmanyan suggesting youths in India to work for 70-hour and 90-hour in a week respectively, about 200 UK companies with over 5,000 employees have signed up for a permanent four-day workweek with no salary loss.

The 4 Day Week Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation based in the UK, spearheaded the campaign with many companies across sectors, including charities, marketing and technology taking part in it, reported The Guardian.

The five-day working week pattern is a thing of the past and people need more time to relax and lead a happy life, which they would be with the new four-day working week schedule, according to the foundation.  

Campaign director of the 4 Day Week Foundation, Joe Ryle, is of the opinion that the 9 to 5, five-day working week schedule came into existence some 100 years back and no longer serve the purpose in modern times. The four-day working week gives 50% more free time to employees to live happier and can be a win-win situation for both workers and employers, he added.

Advertising, marketing, and press relations companies have taken the charge of the new working schedule, with 30 of them adopting the policy. It was followed by 29 organisations in industries such as, charity, NGO and social care, and 24 in technology, IT and software sectors.

Another 22 companies in the business, consulting and management sectors had already allowed their staff to work four days a week permanently.

While the supporters of the campaign say this is a useful way of attracting and retaining talents and improving productivity by doing the extra amount of work over fewer hours, many US-based companies including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Tesla, and Amazon have issued the strict and clear guidelines, instructing their staff to attend office in person five days a week.

Many companies have also started tracking their daily attendance, with failure to adhere to the guidelines possibly result in termination or suspension. Companies like Lloyds Banking Group are also taking into consideration whether their staff working from office five days a week while deciding their annual bonuses and incentives.

Meanwhile, research conducted by Spark Market Research in the UK said that more than 75% of people between 18 years and 34 years age groups are of the view that a four-day working week would soon become a norm.

About 65% of them are of the opinion that they do not want to see the return of full-time office working in future, it added.

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Topics: Employee Relations, #Productivity, #Future of Work

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