How many hours do you work a week? Or has this become one of those impossible questions to answer, given all the times you’ve logged on from your sofa post-9pm because there’s an email you forgot to send and…what’s that? Just another email you should probably respond to.
You’re not alone if you feel like your working hours have increased. A study by Trades Union Congress (TUC) in 2019 showed that the UK has some of the longest working hours in the European Union (EU), with employees working an average of 42 hours a week in 2019, which is two more than the typical EU employee.
This is equivalent to working an extra two and a half weeks a year, which is the equivalent of a really good holiday.
But, according to the survey, despite the long working hours, we’re not actually being that productive. Countries where employees work less hours are getting more done.
A recent 2021 four-day week trial in Iceland involving more than 2,5000 workers (1% of the country's working population) resulted in what researchers dubbed an 'overwhelming success'. The trials, run by Reykjavík City Council and the national government, saw workers paid the same amount for shorter hours between 2015 and 2019. The trials have resulted in unions renegotiating working schedules, with 86% of Iceland's workforce now either working shorter hours for the same pay, or will gain the right to, according to researchers.
In Germany, where full-time employees work 1.8 hours less a week, productivity is 14.6% more than in the UK. In Denmark, which has the shortest hours in the EU and where workers put in over four hours less than the UK, productivity is 23.5% higher.
But how have working patterns been affected by Covid-19? There's no doubt the world of work is in a state of flux right now. Whatever your job, it’s likely that it looks quite different to how it did at the beginning of last year, thanks to increased working from home and the need for more flexibility, all against the backdrop of a global pandemic.
‘The pandemic has changed how we live, how we work and where we work, and it has accelerated a work trend we were already seeing – the shift to flexibility across space, place and time,’ says Mathieu Proust, General Manager of WeWork in the UK & Ireland, who is at the forefront of shifting working patterns.
One of the effects we’re seeing is a change in working hours. A study of 1.3m remote workers in North America, Europe and the Middle East during the pandemic found that our working days had increased and we were attending more – although shorter – meetings.
But as working hours creep up, are we at our most productive? Enter the conversation around the four-day week, which has resurfaced recently as the world of work continues to change.
Benefits of a four-day week
Not long ago, the idea of cramming five days worth of work into four would have been met with ridicule. But now, even in the midst of the pandemic, conversations are being taken more seriously around the benefits and practicalities of a four-day week, which companies continue to trial around the world.
In 2019, Microsoft Japan reduced the working week of its employees by one day as part of a ‘Work-Life Choice Challenge’. For the month of August, the office was shut every Friday, and employees were given full pay.
The results of the trial were clear: productivity increased by 39.9% compared with the August before, meetings became more efficient and employees were happier.
The trial also had a positive effect on environmental factors: 59% fewer pages of paper were printed during the month and electricity use was down 23% in the office.
There are other, less obvious benefits. As Will Stronge, director of research at the Autonomy, a think tank which focuses on the future of work says ‘A four-day week is also a useful tool for recruitment: by offering better hours than competitors, firms can attract applicants for reasons other than higher wages.’
For some companies, a four-day week is more than just an experiment. In 2018, a New Zealand trust fund called Perpetual Guardian became one of the country's first big companies to switch its 240 employees to a four-day week, without reducing pay. In a study of the trial, results showed that productivity increased, even though employees were working for 7.5 hours less a week.
Productivity wasn’t the only thing that improved. Employees recorded a better sense of work-life balance (54% before the trial to 78% afterwards), while stress levels went down.
According to the company’s founder Andrew Barnes, the trial proved that the four-day week is no longer just a theoretical possibility: ‘This is an idea whose time has come.'
Why is now the time for a four-day week?
For WeWork’s Mathieu Proust the way we think about productivity has to change: ‘Productivity isn’t about hours put in; it is about how you use your time, utilising proximity to colleagues to coordinate and collaborate to get a job done and being in a space designed to enable you to be as productive as possible.’
And as working patterns are affected by coronavirus, there are increasing calls for more flexibility which, says Proust, is why now is a good time to introduce change: ‘Everyone wants more flexibility in where and when they work and employers need to embrace this - I really believe now is the moment to change the culture of our companies.’
It turns out that employees are on board too, especially millennials, who now make up the largest percentage of the workforce.
According to Deepa Somasundari, director of client success at global jobs site Indeed: ‘Our research shows three quarters of the UK workforce believe they could do their job to the same standard in four days as they do in five and that support for a four-day working week is strongest among millennials (23-38 year olds).’
The importance of work-life balance and reduced stress is a big factor in people’s support of the four-day week, but there are also practical and economic benefits, especially for parents and people who are caring for relatives.
‘A reduced week would also help workers with caring responsibilities either for an older relative or a child and for parents it could bring some financial relief from cutting back on childcare costs,’ says Somasundari.
For Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of the book Shorter which advocates working less in order to get more done, his research showed that working mothers were one of the biggest groups to benefit from cutting back hours.
‘In companies that adopt shorter hours there’s no competitive advantage to being able to sit in a chair for 12 hours a day. What do these companies want? People who can focus, juggle lots of tasks, be empathetic to co-workers but ruthless about time management, do the work and get out of there. Who has those qualities? Working mothers.’
Will change actually come?
For all the enthusiasm and column inches being given to a four-day week, there are still big question marks over how it would be implemented, and whether it could work across all industries.
In 2019, The Wellcome Trust - the London-based research foundation - considered plans to give 800 employees in its Head Office Fridays off without cutting pay. However, after months of consultation it was considered ‘too operationally complex to implement’.
Somasundari confirms that a four-day week won’t be feasible for all businesses. ‘Our research found support for a four-day working week was high among office workers but low in construction and transport,' she notes. 'Less flexible roles can also struggle to adapt. This could raise the question at companies of whether it’s fair that some workers are entitled to a four-day week while others are not.'
There's also the argument that trying to cram four days of work into five could actually increase stress for some workers.
But it’s perhaps clearer than ever that the way we’ve always worked doesn't necessarily work anymore.
For Pang, the pandemic has not only instigated change but ‘Covid has shown that we can change more quickly than we’ve been led to believe. The working world we left in March wasn’t designed by some all-seeing genius; it was more like a cluttered antique shop of outmoded structures, mouldy assumptions, and obsolete practices. We have a chance to make something better, and we all want something better.’
Now, how many hours did you say you worked?
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