Labours plan 4 day work week, genius

SpiderLegs

I can’t wait for this.
I’m thinking I can jack the main job in and instead work three days at contractor rates to companies for covering their own staff who are now sat in Wetherspoons for an extra day.

‘Costs covered by productivity gains’ my backside.

spadoosh

Herzlos wrote: »

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.





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.



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.



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.

I dont think youd get anywhere near 20% of commuter traffic. Nearer to 5%. Majority of people work in service roles. So customer facing. Majority of people dont work in london which is the anomaly for people driving to their work place.

The office example youve used looks like you could argue just dismissing 20% of the staff as unproductive.

I appreciate the productivity bell curve. I could easily drop to a 4 day week in my job role (book keeping and payroll) if i worked as efficient as i could, it could be a 2 day job if that. But the industry i work in, care, you need 1/2 people to look after one person for a period of 30 minutes or one hour. No amount of 4 day week or efficiencies is going to effect the overall commuting levels. To put that in perspective, youve got 1.5 million employees in that sector or about 5% of the UK workforce. The NHS is very similar in general.


Then you need to weigh in the fact that people have an extra day to do what they want in their free time, its unlikely to involve staying at home all day (using heating).

Not dismissing a 4 day week, reckon it could work. Just dont think it will effect environmental factors that much. Essentially youve still got the same amount of people priducing the same amoutn of stuff.

The-Joker

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?

Yes and your employer will be paid subsidies to employ more staff to cover the workload
It’s win win everyone is happy

The-Joker

fatbeetle wrote: »

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

Labour are socialist and everyone loves free stuff

Herzlos

spadoosh wrote: »

I dont think youd get anywhere near 20% of commuter traffic. Nearer to 5%. Majority of people work in service roles. So customer facing. Majority of people dont work in london which is the anomaly for people driving to their work place.

That's fair enough, it's still a reduction.

The office example youve used looks like you could argue just dismissing 20% of the staff as unproductive.

But that's not how it works, because now you've got 80% of the staff still being less productive.

I appreciate the productivity bell curve. I could easily drop to a 4 day week in my job role (book keeping and payroll) if i worked as efficient as i could, it could be a 2 day job if that. But the industry i work in, care, you need 1/2 people to look after one person for a period of 30 minutes or one hour.

Obviously it doesn't work for people who have 40 hours a week of customer facing time.

Then you need to weigh in the fact that people have an extra day to do what they want in their free time, its unlikely to involve staying at home all day (using heating).

Whatever their doing likely doesn't involve commuting to a city centre at 8am and coming home at 5pm though, so will still ease congestion.

Not dismissing a 4 day week, reckon it could work. Just dont think it will effect environmental factors that much. Essentially youve still got the same amount of people priducing the same amoutn of stuff.

It'll be a step in the right direction. The same amount of people will produce the same amount of stuff but with less travelling.





I think the underlying idea here, though, is that productivity should have gotten to the point that your average adult should be able to support themselves on a 4-day week, but wage suppression and high costs mean that many people are finding themselves working 60+ hours a week just to survive. The main aim would be to increase pay to the point where people don't feel the need to work full time, rather than outright banning anyone who does more than 4 shifts a week - it'd be impossible to police for a start.


Basically, a shift in outlook from a 5-day week being the norm to a 4-day week being the norm.

MaxiRobriguez

Thrugelmir wrote: »

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

Yeah, unfortunately we don't have any major cities like Minsk or Tallinn. :money:

Thrugelmir

MaxiRobriguez wrote: »

Yeah, unfortunately we don't have any major cities like Minsk or Tallinn. :money:

Where the majority of the population resides.............

Be interesting to know the stats for more rural areas. Labour have promised to tackle the most remote areas first.

spadoosh

Herzlos wrote: »

That's fair enough, it's still a reduction.



But that's not how it works, because now you've got 80% of the staff still being less productive.



Obviously it doesn't work for people who have 40 hours a week of customer facing time.




Whatever their doing likely doesn't involve commuting to a city centre at 8am and coming home at 5pm though, so will still ease congestion.





It'll be a step in the right direction. The same amount of people will produce the same amount of stuff but with less travelling.





I think the underlying idea here, though, is that productivity should have gotten to the point that your average adult should be able to support themselves on a 4-day week, but wage suppression and high costs mean that many people are finding themselves working 60+ hours a week just to survive. The main aim would be to increase pay to the point where people don't feel the need to work full time, rather than outright banning anyone who does more than 4 shifts a week - it'd be impossible to police for a start.


Basically, a shift in outlook from a 5-day week being the norm to a 4-day week being the norm.

I can take the 4 day week and reasoned arguments.

My concern was attributing something to it which is unlikely to have any notable impact, that being 'the environmental impacts of going to a 4 day week would be impressive'.

I dont think its a valid argument. In that theres way too many variables to come close to speculating which way it would go never mind speculation on the % improvements.

Not arguing against the 4 day week here. Arguing that the 4 day week is as likely if not more so to have a negligible effect on the environment.

It can sell itself and should without attributing other more questionable arguments to it. Basically i really like the idea of the 4 day week and dont want it being dismissed with invalid arguments, one potentially being that assertions to the ecological benefits being wrong or inaccurate.

Happy to look at anything youve got that suggest otherwise but it just seems a bit anecdotal. My anecdotal view point comes from napoleon and us being a nation of shop keepers. Hes not far wrong. Add in the NHS and i get the impression most people are largely customer facing.

Thrugelmir

Productivity is as much down to skills that people possess as much as hours worked. If there's a skills mismatch then productivity will not increase. Easy to list numerous industries and occupations where reduced hours wouldn't increase output in any form. Simply be another cost burden to the employer.

Herzlos

spadoosh wrote: »

Happy to look at anything youve got that suggest otherwise but it just seems a bit anecdotal. My anecdotal view point comes from napoleon and us being a nation of shop keepers. Hes not far wrong. Add in the NHS and i get the impression most people are largely customer facing.

Unfortunately I don't think there is any data out there that would allow us to determine what percentage of commuters would be able to work a 4 day week without replacement. Using my office building as an example, I think 9 out of 10 units could have the majority of staff working 4 days, but then I'm in an office building with lawyers* etc, rather than an industrial estate, hospital or retail part.


Taking the lawyers as another example. There's 2 lawyers and a receptionist, open Mon-Fri 9-5. They could probably just close on a Friday and be fine, but there'd be nothing stopping Lawyer A working Mon-Thurs and Lawyer B working Tues-Fri for office work (court being something they can't schedule).
It does mean that reception would either need to be empty for one day, or the receptionist would have to work all 5 days, or potentially job share.


I guess the argument is - how much a reduction in commuting would become significant? Even a 1% reduction in car traffic in any given rush hour would be a pretty good thing.