Labours plan 4 day work week, genius

michaels

RealElement47 wrote: »

As long as the government print more money to fund it and Every company will have to hire more personal, unemployment will go down even more

Plus people will be out spending one more day per week, faster money valocity great for the economy

Labour are great all round, they are going to come down hard on greedy landlords and property owners and bail out the people instead of the banks and the already rich

I so hope this post is ironic....

fatbeetle

4 days a week, and free broadband, will their largesse never end?!?!

MaxiRobriguez

Free broadband is a move in the right direction. Our broadband proliferation and speeds are some of the worst in Europe. Belarus and Estonia are light years ahead of us. Automation and the Internet of Things is going to dramatically change various work sectors as well as private life. We need a rethink of how we do broadband because the current model has failed us. Labour's proposals may not be perfect, but they are at least attempting to offer a solution to the current problem, soon to be crisis. It would be nice if the other parties recognised there was a problem and offered their own solutions.

The 4 day week is unlikely to happen any time soon, but the more automation as per above comes in, the less people will be needed to do work, so we're going to have to have a think about how we deal with that. We could have a much bigger unemployment pool for example rather than reduce working weeks, but I suspect that's not going to be tolerable to governments either.

Herzlos

The environmental impacts for going to a 4-day week would be pretty impressive, since you'd be knocking about 20% off commuter traffic off for a start. Congestion would also improve since presumably the 4-days can be staggered a bit.


The 5-day working week is a relic from when people toiled all the time beyond their rest and religious day. Plenty of studies show that people often get more work done over 4 days than 5 as they are better rested. I certainly don't become more productive if I spend an extra 8 hours sat at my desk trying to keep my eyes open.


We keep making huge leaps forward in productivity, but never seem to be reaping any benefits from it.

spadoosh

Herzlos wrote: »

The environmental impacts for going to a 4-day week would be pretty impressive, since you'd be knocking about 20% off commuter traffic off for a start. Congestion would also improve since presumably the 4-days can be staggered a bit.


The 5-day working week is a relic from when people toiled all the time beyond their rest and religious day. Plenty of studies show that people often get more work done over 4 days than 5 as they are better rested. I certainly don't become more productive if I spend an extra 8 hours sat at my desk trying to keep my eyes open.


We keep making huge leaps forward in productivity, but never seem to be reaping any benefits from it.

How would it reduce commuter traffic?

Lets say youve got a shop thats open 7 days a week. It doesnt matter if you have a staff member working 4 days or 7 days. You need a member of staff in every day. So youll have staff commuting everyday of the week.

Even in an office i cant see it reeducing anything. Assume they maintain a 5 day week, or is the suggestion that everyone has the same fixed day off eg friday? Youre still going to have commuting every day of the week even though youve got employee working 4 days. Youll just need to employ another person to work the friday or extra day. Who will presumably need to commute?

Or are we just having a 4 day week now? No emergency services out of the 4 days, no shops, no service/support etc etc.

Herzlos

spadoosh wrote: »

How would it reduce commuter traffic?

You've seen how busy traffic is around office opening/closing hours?


Lots of office roles that aren't really customer facing would be able to move to a 4 day week, meaning there'd be about 20% less commuting journeys made for those jobs. Some offices may even choose to only open 4 days and save on cleaning, power, lighting, etc.

Lets say youve got a shop thats open 7 days a week. It doesnt matter if you have a staff member working 4 days or 7 days. You need a member of staff in every day. So youll have staff commuting everyday of the week.

True, the customer facing stuff will still likely stay open for the same hours, but they may have less staff on. Plenty of jobs would be able to go down to 4 days without any real impact.


I don't imagine many people driving into the centre of London are working in retail or hospitality though, given that parking can cost more the minimum wage.

Even in an office i cant see it reeducing anything. Assume they maintain a 5 day week, or is the suggestion that everyone has the same fixed day off eg friday? Youre still going to have commuting every day of the week even though youve got employee working 4 days. Youll just need to employ another person to work the friday or extra day. Who will presumably need to commute?

Because you don't need to maintain the same staffing hours to keep the same productivity.


Say you've got 100 people in an office, currently Mon-Fri 9-5. That's 500 commutes/week. You can drop everyone to a 4 day week, maintain productivity and keep the office open by giving 200 an extra day off, each day. So now you've got 80 in each day and only 400 commutes.

Or are we just having a 4 day week now? No emergency services out of the 4 days, no shops, no service/support etc etc.

Almost everything could still have the same customer opening hours. You just need to start looking at jobs in terms of productivity instead of hours sat at a desk.

RelievedSheff

Its just more pie in the sky Labour fantasy policies.

Not worth wasting time writing about it because they won't get voted in with the current set of clowns at the helm!

MobileSaver

Kim_kim wrote: »

So let me get this straight. I would work 4 days a week but still get the same income I do now for 5?

If you are on minimum wage and the government increase the minimum wage by 25% then yes. Of course a huge number of people who are earning above minimum wage will be paid less, potentially 20% less! Obviously Labour are not targetting this latter group.

phillw wrote: »

If only the government could override the laws of nature and change the minimum wage.

Yeah, force businesses to hire more staff and increase the minimum wage by 25%: what do you honestly think that will do to the UK's economy?

Herzlos wrote: »

Lots of office roles that aren't really customer facing would be able to move to a 4 day week, ... You can drop everyone to a 4 day week, maintain productivity

Do you really think there are a huge number of businesses that only have enough work for four days a week but open and employ staff for five days a week for a laugh?!?! :rotfl:

If it was so simple to lose a day but maintain productivity do you not think a huge number of UK businesses would have done this already?

Thrugelmir

MaxiRobriguez wrote: »

Free broadband is a move in the right direction. Our broadband proliferation and speeds are some of the worst in Europe. Belarus and Estonia are light years ahead of us.

Perhaps that's because the bulk of the population live in highly concentrated areas.

PasturesNew

A four day week can work, but not for every industry....

It's the spirit of it that would need to be embraced, so that won't happen.

I've worked 4 days weeks before, they're glorious, every weekend felt like a holiday. I was more productive/motivated on those four days AND I saved 20% of my commuting time/costs as I drive to work.

Other industries would have to look at the spirit of the movement. In short: people working longer, but fewer, days... if they got their thinking caps on it could be worked out.

But ... it then gets mucked up by services people rely on being available/not, such as public transport and childcare.

It would only work if everybody had an open mind and was working towards a common goal.

As it is, an increasing number of employers have in the last 20 years simply split up full time jobs into part-time jobs and expected staff to "jump to it" when they call them and say "can you come in this afternoon"... flexible for the employer, rubbish for employees who can't plan... and this further lead onto zero hours contracts.

4 days weeks.... good.
People's personal agendas and problems make it a non starter as there'd not be enough open minds willing to genuinely work towards the spirit of it all.