Last night Caroline Millar spoke on BBC Scotland’s ‘The Nine’ news programme following the launch of a report yesterday by an organisation called ‘4 Day Week’ calling for a national roll out of a four-day week. (
https://www.4dayweek.com )
But as Caroline goes on to explain, a four-day week won’t work for every business.
The pilot, organised by ‘4 Day Week Global’, took place between June and December 2022, and involved a trial of 61 organisations across the UK, including some non-profit organisations, as well as private firms in recruitment, software, and manufacturing. According to the report, 86 per cent of businesses are to extend the trial after the initial six-month period.
The premise of the four-day week is not working part-time for part-time pay but working 80 per cent of your time at 100 per cent of your productivity for 100 per cent of your pay.
The success of the four-day week concept is based on productivity gains from employees who were previously not working at one hundred per cent productivity. For example, you have less unnecessary meetings, travel and admin and by cutting these out ,you still get your job done in a reduced time. This model assumes that people and businesses are not already working efficiently.
I completely understand the need for a good work life balance, for looking after health and well-being and for taking time off either in the week or getting away on holiday. This is essential for both employees and business owners.
There may be some businesses or sectors where this will work but it is simply wrong to say that this is something that will be able to be taken up by all businesses or sectors. I run businesses which look after both animals and people and looking after them well in shorter hours to the same quality of experience is not possible.
As an example, running a farming business, if we employed a shepherd to work 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday and we looked after the sheep and cows outwith those times at weekends and in the evening. If she or he finished up work on the Thursday night, we just can’t not check on the animals on the Friday or feed them, so there are welfare reasons why we need to have someone work over regular days. We can’t do Friday’s welfare checks on a Thursday then nothing until Saturday. You can’t say to a shed full of ewes can you hurry up and give birth on Thursday by 5pm as I am taking Friday off.
In our tourism business we have a similar set up. Our Manager checking properties and giving a personal welcome to new guests Monday to Friday 9 to 5 with us looking after guests at weekends and in the evening. She cannot be more efficient and welcome Friday’s guests a day early, she needs to be there on the Friday otherwise they will not receive the same level of service as when you arrive any other day.
The issue with the four-day working week is not the premise of working only four days. The issue is working four days on the full pay you were on for five days.
If you are in the type of job or business which requires you to be there to provide a service, in our case to people or animals, you need to find money to pay someone to cover the day off that a staff member had been doing previously. At a time when businesses are finding it extremely challenging post Covid, Brexit and with rising costs, finding an extra 20 per cent of income to subsidise a four-day week is just not an option.
In addition with an unemployment rate of three per cent currently it is almost impossible to find staff to fill the gaps.
The challenge for all sectors going forward is if more businesses adopt this four-day week model, businesses not offering this may find it even more difficult to find staff.
Having to achieve 100 per cent of your workload in 80 per cent of your time could put a lot of pressure on people and negatively impact their mental and physical health.
The four-day week that is being proposed is also based on the assumption that all people are not working efficiently as possible at the moment and that all businesses are not working efficiently as they can be and somehow that incentive of getting your work finished by 5pm on a Thursday night will drive up productivity.
What if your business is operating at maximum efficiency? Although you can also tweak operations and do better there might not be those efficiencies to drive in all businesses.
There may be some businesses or sectors where this will work but it is simply wrong to say that this is something that will be able to be taken up by all businesses or sectors.
I know many farmers and tourism business owners will be reading this hoping they can get down from a seven-day week as business owners to six days. There also has to be health and safety implications for jobs where people just can’t go faster to get the job done in less time. The person operating the plough just driving 20 per cent faster to get the field finished by Thursday night might not be doing that safely or efficiently. Farming is driven by the seasons and we have to be flexible to suit weather and peak times of year.
It is absolutely right that we look after our own health and that of our employees. We must offer flexible working where we can for example with part-time employment and think about the wider benefits we can offer staff which go further than basic pay.
The four-day week campaigners are advocating a benefit to the hospitality and tourism sectors would be that so many more people will have an extra day off there will be more time and money to spend in these sectors. But if we are all on a four-day week who will actually be there to look after these extra people on their day off?
A national roll out of the four-day week where this is imposed on all sectors and businesses just won’t work.
- Caroline Millar, Balkello Farm, Auchterhouse, Dundee is East Region Chair for NFU Scotland and Sector Lead for Scottish Agritourism. Caroline and her husband Ross farm 950 acres in south Angus producing Scotch Beef, Scotch Lamb and cereals as well as running The Hideaway Experience, a star tourism business hello@casmillar.com