The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) interviewed some British employers who have decided not to adopt the four-day workweek, despite the positive results seen in experiments conducted in the United Kingdom.
According to the BBC website, the UK has begun to draw conclusions from the six-month experiment where 61 companies tried a four-day workweek. The results are overwhelmingly positive with 92% of companies saying they will continue with the system and 30% making it permanent.
Although the results of the six-month experiment of the four-day week in the UK showed positive effects on employees, with 71% reporting less burnout, not all companies have decided to adopt this system. The BBC reports that some companies have abandoned the experiment, while others have not implemented it in a sustainable manner.
Allcap, an engineering company that joined the test program with hopes of offering an additional day off to its teams, has not adopted the four-day week like most of the 61 participating companies. Allcap joined the initiative late and instead of offering workers a three-day weekend, its employees were given a working day off every fifteen days.
A disparate arrangement
However, it turned out that the arrangement was not sufficient.
“We found that instead of working ten days, employees were working the extreme nine – and once they got the scheduled day off they were exhausted,” said CEO Mark Roderick of Allcap.
As a result, the company had to exit the program two months before the planned end date.
According to several experts, the four-day week may not be feasible for all industries. The BBC reported:
“For certain businesses, particularly those that require customer-facing roles, implementing the four-day week meant hiring additional staff, making it too expensive to adopt the new model.”
The implementation of the four-day week revealed a difference in the types of positions held by employees, particularly in companies with customer-facing roles. While employees who did not have direct customer contact (such as those working in warehouses) were able to exceed their objectives, those in customer-facing roles were under more pressure.
Alison Dunn, the Managing Director of the consumer helpline at Citizens Advice, a British legal aid company, argues that it would be difficult to adopt the four-day week for everyone due to the company’s size. With 220 employees, it would be unimaginable to give four-day workweeks to some and not to others.
In conclusion, some companies have chosen to reduce the weekly working time without implementing the four-day week, by reducing the daily workload instead. While the four-day week is a valuable experiment for some companies, it may not be feasible for everyone, as it poses challenges for businesses with customer-facing positions and requires additional hiring, which may be prohibitively expensive. The BBC website recommends that companies carefully consider the potential benefits and drawbacks before deciding whether to adopt the four-day week.