{"id":211809,"date":"2025-06-25T01:00:24","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T01:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/211809\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T01:00:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T01:00:24","slug":"edinburgh-council-to-explore-running-a-four-day-work-week-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/211809\/","title":{"rendered":"Edinburgh Council to explore running a four-day work week trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edinburgh Council has said that it intends to explore running a trial four-day work week after an English local authority had success with it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

City council officers will examine four-day work week trials in other parts of the UK and determine whether such a trial can be run in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n

In a council meeting last week, councillors said that they had looked at South Cambridgeshire District Council\u2019s successful trial<\/a>, where benefits included attracting and retaining workers, reducing reliance on agency staff, and cutting costs.<\/p>\n

However, councillors also noted the council\u2019s long-term challenges around budget pressures, recruitment into \u201chard to fill\u201d roles, use of agency staff and overtime, and indicators of poorer worker health, such as illness absence rates.<\/p>\n

Councillors have asked officers \u201cto prepare a report for Finance & Resources Committee within two cycles bringing together information and data on recruitment, retention, productivity and health of our workers, and exploring the evidence from reduced or four-day week pilots\/trials\/permanent models in relevant organisations\u201d.<\/p>\n

They also noted the opportunities offered by the Four Day Week Foundation \u201cto explore options or carry out a pilot\u201d, asking officers to consider this offer within their report.<\/p>\n

According to press reports, Green councillor Claire Miller, who put forward the motion to explore a trial, said: \u201cWhen faced with the need for budget cuts every year, it\u2019s a joy to find a proposal which helps to save money while also being beneficial rather than detrimental.<\/p>\n

However, Conservative councillor Chris Cowdy was cautious, saying: \u201cAt a time when our own council continues to face budgetary pressures, rising demand of core services and persistent performance issues, now may not be the time for a speculative experiment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four-day work weeks have gained more popularity since the boom in hybrid working prompted by the Covid pandemic, and many organisations are starting to take it up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Numerous studies have shown that moving to a four-day week boosts productivity and worker wellbeing. When Microsoft trialled a four-day week with no loss of pay in its Japan office, productivity went up by 40%.<\/p>\n

Separately, Manchester-based solicitors IMD Solicitors announced last week that it has permanently moved its 31 employees to a four-day, 30-hour working week, without any reduction in pay, after a nine-month trial had positive results. Full client availability will be provided five days a week by staggering staff days off.<\/p>\n

The 4 Day Week Foundation has accredited more than 230 UK companies that have permanently adopted a four-day week with no loss of pay for employees, covering over 6,000 workers. The vast majority have reduced working hours to 32 hours a week or fewer.<\/p>\n

Joe Ryle, campaign director of the 4 Day Week Foundation, said: \u201cWith 50% more free time, moving to a four-day week gives workers the freedom to be able to live a happier and better life.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs hundreds of British companies and one local council have already shown, implementation can be a win-win for both workers and employers. The 9-5, 5 day working week was invented 100 years ago and no longer suits the realities of modern life. We are long overdue an update.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edinburgh Council has said that it intends to explore running a trial four-day work week after an English…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,7044,1102,4884,12,712,16,15,43978],"class_list":{"0":"post-211809","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-comment","10":"tag-edinburgh","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-workplace-culture"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}