‘Working compressed hours saves me £350 a month on childcare’ | EUROtoday

Like many full-time employees Laura Etchells had longed for hours extra versatile than the normal Monday to Friday, 9 to five.

The mum-of-two from Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, now works her full-time job in publishing, compressed into 4 days, and wouldn’t have it every other method.

She says the additional break day – Friday in her case – saves her round £350 a month in childcare prices, and she or he says makes her extra productive in her job.

“The longer days allow me to get my teeth stuck into things a bit more,” she says, including that if she had been to work anyplace else then a compressed week could be a “must”.

“Cost wasn’t the deciding factor to condense into four days, but it did contribute to the decision. The overall benefit was spending more time with my children whilst maintaining my full-time job.”

The BBC has heard from a number of individuals, like Laura, who work compressed hours, after Labour stated it needs to strengthen employees’ rights for extra versatile hours.

On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds held a gathering with enterprise leaders to debate their plan, which is a part of the upcoming Employment Bill.

Since April, staff have had the best to request versatile working from day one, together with compressed hours, however authorized consultants suppose Labour’s plan will probably goal to make it tougher for employers to reject requests for better flexibility.

Currently, employees must persuade their employers to permit versatile hours. Under Labour’s plan, employment solicitor Alison Loveday says firms might have to elucidate “on what grounds can they justify refusing a four-day week”.

The proposals don’t match the definition as set out by the official four-day week marketing campaign, which calls for a similar pay for fewer hours.

Rather, Labour has stated that staff would “still be doing the same amount of work” throughout totally different working patterns – corresponding to, for instance, 4 10-hour shifts.

Laura’s employer, Emerald Publishing, affords a variety of versatile working choices, which it says makes workers extra productive and improves work-life steadiness.

However, the corporate’s chief authorized and folks officer Emma Tregenza admits: “While the benefits are clear, it’s worth noting that it can be a long day for people doing compressed hours.

“That can also have a knock-on effect on others in the team who work a ‘normal pattern’… what it does to their schedules. It can be challenging to work around multiple variations of working hours.”

Jason Magee had a rather different experience to Laura when Cortex, the Guernsey-based software firm he works for, trialled compressing staff’s hours last August, with everyone working 35 hours across four days, rather than five.

Although he was eager to give it a go and recalls making full use of his Fridays off, he says the longer working days were a challenge and thinks he was less productive.

“After about seven or eight hours, you begin to really feel run down and you are not working as greatest as you’ll be able to,” he says.

Matt Thornton, one in every of Cortex’s founders, says it shifted the agency’s focus.

“We’re not a company that clock watches. But during the trial period, we became far more conscious of working hours, rather than whether they were getting the work done.

“We’re a software business and have longer-term business goals rather than weekly, but when you compress working hours, you put the spotlight on those four days rather than the outcome.”

Cortex is now experimenting with a four-day week with decreased hours, which means 4 eight-hour days, in keeping with the official marketing campaignand Matt says the suggestions to this has been far more constructive.

There is proscribed analysis round the advantages of working compressed hours.

A 2023 report for the International Labour Organization states: “Studies of the effects of existing compressed workweeks generally conclude that they positively affect work–life balance.”

But it provides: “However, there is a lack of consensus concerning the physiological and psychological health effects of compressed workweeks.”

For Kelly Burton, a psychological well being nurse from Crewe, condensing her hours right into a four-day week since July has given her “perfect work-life balance”.

“I’m happier at work, can spend the extra day looking after elderly parents and still have my weekend,” she told the BBC.

Peter Meacham, a dispensing optician at a pharmacy in Basildon, Essex, made the same move in September 2020.

Both Kelly and Peter say they had to convince their bosses that they could get the same amount of work done over four days.

Peter works Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, which gives him Tuesday and Wednesday off for his hobby – performing magic shows for charity.

If he were to get a new job, he says the ability to work a compressed week would be “an absolute key issue” in his decision.

Despite the success stories from people like Laura, Kelly and Peter, Michelle Ovens, founder of Small Business Britain, has mixed views on compressed hours.

She describes it as “a restricted answer that won’t work for all, significantly the small companies that want to remain open all through the week, typically with peak durations of exercise”.

She says that introducing a four-day week could lead to higher staffing costs and that there are other ways of improving flexibility and accommodating staff “somewhat than merely implementing compressed hours and a strict four-day week system”.

She advises businesses not to be alarmed by the government’s proposals, though.

“Labour has been clear that it’s not mandating the four-day working week,” she says.

“It is necessary that small companies are reassured that there isn’t a trigger for concern, particularly for sectors the place this coverage wouldn’t be possible.”

For those who are still unsure about whether a compressed week will work for them, those words will come as some relief.

Additional reporting by Oliver Smith and Bernadette McCague