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Arthur T Knackerbracket [soylentnews.org] writes:

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story [theregister.com]:

A four-day working week pilot programme is being squarely aimed at the UK tech sector with the final results to be assessed by academics.

The post-pandemic world of work has changed, with many employees demanding more flexibility in their labor location and the hours they put in, amid a tension that many corporations would prefer to revert back to more traditional styles.

With this in mind, consultancy 4 Day Week Foundation is urging tech businesses of all shapes and sizes to sign up to a six-month trial from June 30, starting with a six-week workshop and training that begins May 22.

"Nothing better represents the future of work than the tech sector which we know is an agile industry ripe for embracing new ways of working such as a four-day week," said Sam Hunt, business network coordinator at the consultant.

"As hundreds of British companies have already shown, a four-day, 32 hour working week with no loss of pay can be a win-win for workers and employers," he added. "The 9-5, 5 day working week was invented 100 years ago and no longer suits the realities of modern life."

The idea is simple, cram the normal working week into four days instead of five, with no loss of pay for the employee.

Atom Bank is purported to be one of the largest employers in the UK to have wrapped its arms around the initiative. It's one of 226 organizations in Britain to do it, including 24 in the tech sector such as cloud services biz Civo.

We asked both Civo and Atom Bank to tell us about their experiences so far with regard to staff morale, productivity, the number of staff that do a four-day week, and if a restructure was required.

Is the four-day working week conducive to the tech sector? 4 Day Week Foundation told us: "It's important for any organization implementing a four day week to consult their staff, take a test-and-learn approach and then review results to see if it's achieved what they set out to."

The results of the upcoming pilot will be reviewed by researchers at the University of Sussex and Newcastle University.

Prior to the pandemic, Microsoft tested out the four-day-week at its offices in Japan [theguardian.com], giving its entire local workforce Fridays off without impact to pay. This initiative, Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019, led to more efficient meetings, a happier workers and a reported 40 percent hike in productivity, according to Microsoft.

"Work a short time, rest well and learn a lot," Microsoft Japan president and CEO Takuya Hirano said at the time. "I want employees to think about and experience how they can achieve the same results with 20 percent less working time."

Overheads plunged too: electricity use in the office was down - disproportionately - by 23 percent – and 59 percent fewer pages were printed. This was in addition to 92 percent of staff saying they enjoyed a shorter working week.

However, tycoons at the Redmond-based cloud and software biz have so far not replicated the initiative elsewhere. Microsoft does run a hybrid work policy, however, allowing staff to work remotely and from the office for a number of days a week.

Similarly, Dell ran a four-day-work-week promo in 2022 [theregister.com], and in the early days at least, it seemed to have big hopes and expected more staff to join as "the word spreads more and more." This was done to address the scarcity in the labor market and to attract more diverse range of workers including women and younger people.

Dell enterprise veep and GM Isabel Moll said at the time: "Other big American tech companies in the Netherlands did not adjust their KPIs to the amount of worked hours up until now and are looking at our pilot with warm interest."

The pilot was also rolled out in the Argentinian operation but then seemingly stalled.

We've asked Dell to let us know how things went and if it plans to revive it, which seems unlikely as Dell mandated a return to the office for five days a week in September [theregister.com] - at least for those in sales.

We'll keep you posted on which companies sign up and their experiences.

Original Submission