Sounds great, don’t expect your kidney transplant or loft conversion anytime in the next decade though.
And in 18 months time, someone will come up with a watertight argument for the *two*-day week.
These sorts of prophecies are older than the hill your office is built on. We had this same shite in the 1970s because computers were meant to emancipate us, whereas all that happened was humans could get more work done more quickly and efficiently, therefore humans were just worked *harder* and ended up becoming stressed.
Workplace stress wasn’t really a big thing in the UK until the late 1960s or so.
They will never let it happen. If people had more days off they would protest and work towards creating a fairer happier society. That would be disastrous to those who pay our politicians. They need us all disabled by exhaustion.
This won’t happen, but let’s say it did. What would I do?
* Mon-Wed work; obviously.
* Thurs, probably geeking out on a personal project (monitoring, alerting, firewall blah-blah; all stuff I can use in my job)
* Fri, more geeking out or DIY or exam prep. Gardening if I _absolutely_ must.
* Sat, no real change. Hobbies/Sport. Maybe go out in the evening.
* Sun, no real change. Hobbies/Sport. Laundry. Shopping.
So, _for me_, 1-1.5 of the “lost” days would actually be gained back by my employer as I become more proficient. But I am of course very lucky that I have that crossover of job and interests.
Still, as nice as it is to think about, it’s not going to happen. Guess I’ll just have to keep squeezing in study where I can.
We haven’t even got 4 day work weeks yet calm down.
Maybe start with 4 days if you want to be realistic, and go from there.
3 day work week?? How about we try for 5 days first with proper compensation and benefits.
Let’s get down to a 32-hour week first. The flexibility of that being 4×8 or 4×7 + 4 is far more realistic and inkeeping with the current circumstances.
An excellent idea.
I think focus should be on 4 days though and 4 days of 7.5 hours, not just a 5 days compressed into 4. All professions could probably accommodate 4 days. Even medicine.
In fact a lot of nurses already work “compressed hours” 5 into 4. Get more staff in and the rotas could work far better.
Lots of People working together and pulling a little weight is far better than one person doing it all.
Socialism is very demonised but humans actually evolved to work in big groups. It’s unnatural for humans to work solo all the time.
Most of my week is 4 or sometimes only 3 “productive” days and then at least 1 day where we just bluff our way through it!
Let’s get rid of the Friday working day.
I’d be fine with waiting for things (i.e A slower economy). I wouldn’t really miss having everything ready instantly!
Time to eat the Rich!
Fuck Bezos!
3 day week with 60% pay? ( or 3 day week with 55%pay rise?)
Sounds good to me!
Three days? Don’t hold your breath. I’m still waiting for the four day work week they all talked about. I mean, it took a global pandemic for the c-suite to finally accept flexible working arrangements, and still not all do…
I’ve said it before but the BBC had a piece on how how prices are exceeding salaries the other day, then immediately had someone from JP Morgan on to tell us how we can’t be paid more(unlike them I’m sure).
Fat chance of not having to work at least 5 days a week.
my parents don’t even have a 6 day working week most weeks lol
It might make more sense to to reduce the daily hours. Do we really want another Sunday with everything shut? When we could have a 4 hour work day. That gives a daily chance to respond to emails, while reducing the hours.
Why settle for a three day working week. How about a 0 day working week?
The concept of a working week and of contracted hours in a lot of industries is archaic. Where possible work should be about delivering projects/completing tasks rather than clocking up an arbitrary quota of hours.
30 hour work week. 6 hours per day with a 5 day week. Most people only work 6 of the 8 hours anyway. People would be better rested, have more time for leisure, making them happier and less angry.
Capitalism is completely aimless.
It wants infinite rising profits in markets that are finite. A system that creates billionaires while simultaneously creating Billions of people living on the poverty line without access to basic survival resources *is an economic model that is failing.*
The rich have bought democracies around the world in order to preserve a system that is failing because the only vision they have for the future is how to position themselves to stay protected and capitalise from the economic and climate disasters that are about to unfold – If the rich had any vision what so ever, they would be planning for the 3rd industrial revolution – Instead, just like the people who owned the canals in THIS country, they trying to ban the development of technology & systems that would free people from work. (Those who owned the canal/had shares attempted to stop the introduction of the steam train as they rightfully saw their demise)
For decades they have been gradually increasing people’s workloads and decreasing the average person’s understanding of how society works – Now people are too stupid or too busy to fully comprehend how this failing capitalist system is not just fucking them but has already stolen their children’s futures.
The 4 day work week will *NEVER* happen. Those that run the economy will find a way to make people work, probably even more than they do now.
Capitalists only have their own interests at play. That’s why their okay with poverty. That’s why they’re cool with nepotism. That’s why billionaires send penis shaped rockets into space while half the world suffers.
I’d love to work less but my landlord needs his rent.
I’d settle for a 4 day, 7 hours a day working week. 28 hours, 9-5, 4 days a week. Then the 3 day weekend would be Friday (for shopping/cleaning), Saturday (for seeing friends/family), and Sunday (for full on relaxation and exercise)
I am secretly working 3days a week and I feel better . My physical and mental health improved a lot .
With my current with working 5days a week is mental and my employer does not care in addition my shift are full 5toclose or late close
5days a week non stop ;they won’t allow me to have morning because they need someone in the evening . This drives me crazy.
Let’s first get to 7 hour 4 day working week. But as usual it will be NZ the first country to make it a law before it filters to Uk in 2080.
Should be a zero day working week, the robots can’t come soon enough.
Having worked a 3 day week for 2 months this year, I can attest that it is indeed the dream. I was completely refreshed and focused for my work week on the Monday and before I started to feel drained the week was over and I could enjoy my weekend without feeling it slipping through my fingers. I also enjoyed my work a lot more as I could remain focused
Productivity wise however it was definately a hit and I also had to lean on colleagues covering for me on days off. The first companies to do this will be at a huge disadvantage, for sure.
I thought it was the other way round they want us to work all hours not less!!
I can see the slogan already, “A 3 day week, and this time it’s not because the country has gone to shit!”
As a contractor and now freelancer i tend to stick to a three day week. It s great work like balance 🙂
Whats important is that it showed me I could work smarter faster and more efficient. I could do 5 days work in 3.
Without a shadow of a doubt, this will be about pushing down wages and distributing it across more people, and absolutely it would happen during a time of lack of housing, higher rents, higher house prices, and general higher inflation. Careful what you wish for
Ultimately if you want the British economy to be even remotely competitive, you can’t pass this as law. Try working in tech or finance with this approach, there’s a reason those guys spend so much time in the office, it’s because they have deals and project deadlines where they need to meet requirements in short time frames with many contracts being international.
Even lower skilled work requires 5 working days for production to be competitive internationally.
Anyone who thinks this will hurt business consider this, technology is constantly making processes more time efficient, wouldn’t it be nice for the working folk to reap the benefits of those increases productivity for once?
To be fair it’s been difficult enough to get a lot of offices to embrace WFH. You’ll struggle convincing them they don’t need to be there for a couple of days if you can’t convince them unnecessary presenteeism isn’t a good thing in the first place.
I can’t see how many places of work could implement this
Could construction? Hospitality? Retail? Pretty big sectors
When we cheer for a 3-4 day work week, we forget that a very minority of people will be offered that
This will be like when breaks stopped being paid and we all had to switch from 8 hour shifts to 9 hours
What about 1 bank holiday every month? I am for a 3-day weekend, I don’t think it would be currently possible to get it passed in the Commons with a Tory majority.
England has 8 bank holidays, whilst Sweden has 15, Norway has 14. We would just need to up our bank holidays to 15-16 to be able to have at least 1 long weekend a month.
How am I supposed to pay my rent exactly? I work 37 hours, 5 days a week and just about cover my rent, council tax and netflix.
My wife, also working full time, covers bills and food etc.
And heres me today thinking about how I want to tell my boss I dont want to do 6 day weeks in the summers anymore
We can’t even get bank holidays added or daylight savings stopped, so no.
I’d be happy with a 4 day, but maybe that’s the point. We go for a 3 day and meet in the middle.
I work a 3 day week and it’s ace.
I work Friday 6am-5.30pm, Saturday 6am-6.30pm, and Sunday 6am-5.30pm. Then I have four days off.
I must admit that by Sunday afternoon I’m done but it’s worth it to have more time at home. I get loads done. I eat better, sleep better, less stressed, the house is spotless, I walk the dog more.
I also save much more money because I’m not spending it in the pub on a weekend.
I’m all for it. Also the concept of a working week with a weekend is outdated. A 3/4 day week would be better for a 24/7 economy.
Because you have covid for the other 4 days of the week?
40 comments
Sounds great, don’t expect your kidney transplant or loft conversion anytime in the next decade though.
And in 18 months time, someone will come up with a watertight argument for the *two*-day week.
These sorts of prophecies are older than the hill your office is built on. We had this same shite in the 1970s because computers were meant to emancipate us, whereas all that happened was humans could get more work done more quickly and efficiently, therefore humans were just worked *harder* and ended up becoming stressed.
Workplace stress wasn’t really a big thing in the UK until the late 1960s or so.
They will never let it happen. If people had more days off they would protest and work towards creating a fairer happier society. That would be disastrous to those who pay our politicians. They need us all disabled by exhaustion.
This won’t happen, but let’s say it did. What would I do?
* Mon-Wed work; obviously.
* Thurs, probably geeking out on a personal project (monitoring, alerting, firewall blah-blah; all stuff I can use in my job)
* Fri, more geeking out or DIY or exam prep. Gardening if I _absolutely_ must.
* Sat, no real change. Hobbies/Sport. Maybe go out in the evening.
* Sun, no real change. Hobbies/Sport. Laundry. Shopping.
So, _for me_, 1-1.5 of the “lost” days would actually be gained back by my employer as I become more proficient. But I am of course very lucky that I have that crossover of job and interests.
Still, as nice as it is to think about, it’s not going to happen. Guess I’ll just have to keep squeezing in study where I can.
We haven’t even got 4 day work weeks yet calm down.
Maybe start with 4 days if you want to be realistic, and go from there.
3 day work week?? How about we try for 5 days first with proper compensation and benefits.
Let’s get down to a 32-hour week first. The flexibility of that being 4×8 or 4×7 + 4 is far more realistic and inkeeping with the current circumstances.
An excellent idea.
I think focus should be on 4 days though and 4 days of 7.5 hours, not just a 5 days compressed into 4. All professions could probably accommodate 4 days. Even medicine.
In fact a lot of nurses already work “compressed hours” 5 into 4. Get more staff in and the rotas could work far better.
Lots of People working together and pulling a little weight is far better than one person doing it all.
Socialism is very demonised but humans actually evolved to work in big groups. It’s unnatural for humans to work solo all the time.
Most of my week is 4 or sometimes only 3 “productive” days and then at least 1 day where we just bluff our way through it!
Let’s get rid of the Friday working day.
I’d be fine with waiting for things (i.e A slower economy). I wouldn’t really miss having everything ready instantly!
Time to eat the Rich!
Fuck Bezos!
3 day week with 60% pay? ( or 3 day week with 55%pay rise?)
Sounds good to me!
Three days? Don’t hold your breath. I’m still waiting for the four day work week they all talked about. I mean, it took a global pandemic for the c-suite to finally accept flexible working arrangements, and still not all do…
I’ve said it before but the BBC had a piece on how how prices are exceeding salaries the other day, then immediately had someone from JP Morgan on to tell us how we can’t be paid more(unlike them I’m sure).
Fat chance of not having to work at least 5 days a week.
my parents don’t even have a 6 day working week most weeks lol
It might make more sense to to reduce the daily hours. Do we really want another Sunday with everything shut? When we could have a 4 hour work day. That gives a daily chance to respond to emails, while reducing the hours.
Why settle for a three day working week. How about a 0 day working week?
The concept of a working week and of contracted hours in a lot of industries is archaic. Where possible work should be about delivering projects/completing tasks rather than clocking up an arbitrary quota of hours.
30 hour work week. 6 hours per day with a 5 day week. Most people only work 6 of the 8 hours anyway. People would be better rested, have more time for leisure, making them happier and less angry.
Capitalism is completely aimless.
It wants infinite rising profits in markets that are finite. A system that creates billionaires while simultaneously creating Billions of people living on the poverty line without access to basic survival resources *is an economic model that is failing.*
The rich have bought democracies around the world in order to preserve a system that is failing because the only vision they have for the future is how to position themselves to stay protected and capitalise from the economic and climate disasters that are about to unfold – If the rich had any vision what so ever, they would be planning for the 3rd industrial revolution – Instead, just like the people who owned the canals in THIS country, they trying to ban the development of technology & systems that would free people from work. (Those who owned the canal/had shares attempted to stop the introduction of the steam train as they rightfully saw their demise)
For decades they have been gradually increasing people’s workloads and decreasing the average person’s understanding of how society works – Now people are too stupid or too busy to fully comprehend how this failing capitalist system is not just fucking them but has already stolen their children’s futures.
The 4 day work week will *NEVER* happen. Those that run the economy will find a way to make people work, probably even more than they do now.
Capitalists only have their own interests at play. That’s why their okay with poverty. That’s why they’re cool with nepotism. That’s why billionaires send penis shaped rockets into space while half the world suffers.
I’d love to work less but my landlord needs his rent.
I’d settle for a 4 day, 7 hours a day working week. 28 hours, 9-5, 4 days a week. Then the 3 day weekend would be Friday (for shopping/cleaning), Saturday (for seeing friends/family), and Sunday (for full on relaxation and exercise)
I am secretly working 3days a week and I feel better . My physical and mental health improved a lot .
With my current with working 5days a week is mental and my employer does not care in addition my shift are full 5toclose or late close
5days a week non stop ;they won’t allow me to have morning because they need someone in the evening . This drives me crazy.
Let’s first get to 7 hour 4 day working week. But as usual it will be NZ the first country to make it a law before it filters to Uk in 2080.
Should be a zero day working week, the robots can’t come soon enough.
Having worked a 3 day week for 2 months this year, I can attest that it is indeed the dream. I was completely refreshed and focused for my work week on the Monday and before I started to feel drained the week was over and I could enjoy my weekend without feeling it slipping through my fingers. I also enjoyed my work a lot more as I could remain focused
Productivity wise however it was definately a hit and I also had to lean on colleagues covering for me on days off. The first companies to do this will be at a huge disadvantage, for sure.
I thought it was the other way round they want us to work all hours not less!!
I can see the slogan already, “A 3 day week, and this time it’s not because the country has gone to shit!”
As a contractor and now freelancer i tend to stick to a three day week. It s great work like balance 🙂
Whats important is that it showed me I could work smarter faster and more efficient. I could do 5 days work in 3.
Without a shadow of a doubt, this will be about pushing down wages and distributing it across more people, and absolutely it would happen during a time of lack of housing, higher rents, higher house prices, and general higher inflation. Careful what you wish for
Ultimately if you want the British economy to be even remotely competitive, you can’t pass this as law. Try working in tech or finance with this approach, there’s a reason those guys spend so much time in the office, it’s because they have deals and project deadlines where they need to meet requirements in short time frames with many contracts being international.
Even lower skilled work requires 5 working days for production to be competitive internationally.
Anyone who thinks this will hurt business consider this, technology is constantly making processes more time efficient, wouldn’t it be nice for the working folk to reap the benefits of those increases productivity for once?
To be fair it’s been difficult enough to get a lot of offices to embrace WFH. You’ll struggle convincing them they don’t need to be there for a couple of days if you can’t convince them unnecessary presenteeism isn’t a good thing in the first place.
I can’t see how many places of work could implement this
Could construction? Hospitality? Retail? Pretty big sectors
When we cheer for a 3-4 day work week, we forget that a very minority of people will be offered that
This will be like when breaks stopped being paid and we all had to switch from 8 hour shifts to 9 hours
What about 1 bank holiday every month? I am for a 3-day weekend, I don’t think it would be currently possible to get it passed in the Commons with a Tory majority.
England has 8 bank holidays, whilst Sweden has 15, Norway has 14. We would just need to up our bank holidays to 15-16 to be able to have at least 1 long weekend a month.
How am I supposed to pay my rent exactly? I work 37 hours, 5 days a week and just about cover my rent, council tax and netflix.
My wife, also working full time, covers bills and food etc.
And heres me today thinking about how I want to tell my boss I dont want to do 6 day weeks in the summers anymore
We can’t even get bank holidays added or daylight savings stopped, so no.
I’d be happy with a 4 day, but maybe that’s the point. We go for a 3 day and meet in the middle.
I work a 3 day week and it’s ace.
I work Friday 6am-5.30pm, Saturday 6am-6.30pm, and Sunday 6am-5.30pm. Then I have four days off.
I must admit that by Sunday afternoon I’m done but it’s worth it to have more time at home. I get loads done. I eat better, sleep better, less stressed, the house is spotless, I walk the dog more.
I also save much more money because I’m not spending it in the pub on a weekend.
I’m all for it. Also the concept of a working week with a weekend is outdated. A 3/4 day week would be better for a 24/7 economy.
Because you have covid for the other 4 days of the week?