TOG Talks: 4-Day Working Week

Welcome to The ONE Group's Podcast! We believe that every professional has a great story to tell, which is why we have set up TOGCast to share successful stories and top tips on how candidates and clients got to where they are today.

On this episode, we are joined by Bogdan Dumitrescu and Siân Cox, who have shared their insights and tips on the 4-day working week, detailing a global overview with new evidence from the UK regarding the pilot program.

If you’re looking for advice on how to launch the 4-day working week, email info@theonegroup.co.uk and one of our recruitment specialists will be in touch.

If you would like to be our next guest speaker, host or ask us a question, please email us at marketing@theonegroup.co.uk

Hosted by Leanne Davidson-Town and Producer Bex.

If you would like to be our next guest speaker, host or ask us a question, please email us at hello@theonegroup.co.uk

Hosted by Leanne Davidson-Town and Producer Bex.

Transcript

Let's start with the research team who 

was involved in this pilot so obviously 

there was a there was a very large team 

involved in in getting this project set 

up and the lack of advisor for the 

government and telling them how to kind 

of set up how to talk to the businesses 

what things to expect and so on but 

there was one particular team of 

researchers and professors that have 

been put in charge of collating all of 

this data and all of this information 

across all the trials and then 

transforming that into actual insights 

that will help determine if this was a 

success success if this was you know 

an exercise productivity it was quite 

the opposite so part of the team was the 

collaboration between the College of 

Boston and the University College of 

Dublin and we had the professor Juliet 

Shore Professor one fan and golingoo 

from Boston as well as Professor Orla 

Kelly from University College of Dublin 

wow so lots of people involved so what 

were the results of this trial then so 

there was um obviously a massive amount 

of data around this 

basically we're looking at 

2022 as the baseline here for this 

obviously there have been trials 

happening for years now but 2022 was the 

year when the UK actually put this into 

place and invited a number of 

companies to kind of do this and we had 

61 companies across the UK close to 3 

000 people working on this 

and kind of actually this was 

these were employees they were they were 

involved with this 

basically the majority easily continued 

with this and either have put this as a 

permanent fixture within the business or 

have implemented let's say a sixth one 

six months to one year rolling 

kind of schedule and uh basically 92 

percent of the companies have continued 

with this and have have seen a lot of 

success 

these trials have been happening for 

years now so it's not a new thing 

but however 2022 was the year where 

it actually became a thing and the UK 

the UK government actually appointed 61 

companies in close to about 3 000 

employees and brought them into this 

project to see to see like what it would 

be like if we did it for if we 

implemented a four-day working week yeah 

yeah exactly exactly and basically the 

ratings and all the the scores basically 

were fantastic so most of the companies 

have rated their overall experience 

about 8.3 out of 10. that's great 

92 of those companies have actually 

continued and have turned this into a 

fixed permanent fixture within that 

company or at the very least a kind 

yearly let's say a year Rolling 

rolling fixture 

but even with the clients I've spoken 

to that have turned into a yearly 

rolling fixture they said this isn't to 

deter people from thinking oh we might 

take it away someday it's just in case 

things do go wrong and things sometimes 

can go wrong but I think the 

overwhelming success that this project 

has seen last year I think this will 

mean this will be a permanent picture 

across many companies and I think many 

other companies start seeing the 

benefits of this and start implementing 

this and I think Sean you spoke to one 

of your clients recently yeah so you 

know a couple of our clients have 

started kind of putting this initiative 

together and one of the clients we spoke 

to we actually had a teams call with 

them quite recently and they were kind 

of going through the benefits the 

barriers they've kind of come up against 

but actually I'd say you know 90 of what 

they said was extremely positive when it 

came to you know everything about around 

the four day working week and they had a 

few barriers I think certain teams it 

can be a bit of a struggle depends on 

the job that you do you know as to 

whether it will work for you and what 

like a customer facing team yeah so a 

customer facing team but they actually 

managed to work around this by making it 

like a more of a rototype system so they 

still managed to get a four-day working 

way but it's just that you know the 

first half of the team will do the first 

part of the week the second half team of 

the second part of the week so sometimes 

they've got Monday off sometimes they'll 

get a Friday off but they kind of work 

it around so even though your job might 

not be suitable for it there clearly is 

kind of work around for it and I think 

you know the more companies that do this 

the more kind of ideas will get kind of 

bouncing around and whatnot but yeah 

I mean everything they said was 

extremely positive you know they've got 

a lot of good feedback there's always 

going to be people that are like oh you 

know it's not for me it's not for me or 

whatever like that but you know across 

the board I mean they said pretty much 

everyone was on board with it they 

trialled it for was it six months so 

they did two different trials yeah last 

year so they did one in the summer which 

unfortunately didn't didn't get a lot of 

success or a lot of good insights out of 

it because of annual leave all those and 

things like that okay so I said okay we 

don't wanna we don't want to mess this 

up and we don't want to come up with the 

wrong data so let's do it again over a 

larger period of time when more people 

are in the office and things like that 

so they've done it actually twice and

they just they just loved it and what I 

found interesting was that it was coming 

from the top down because one of my 

biggest concerns with this was also you 

have the managers that like you know 

Batman seats and stuff like that so how 

are they dealing with this and I 

actually asked this question to a few of 

my clients and it all relates against 

the statistics of this project which are 

mainly around the increased productivity 

and revenue so revenue across the 

board has has risen to an average 

about 1.4 percent 

wow so there was an increase yes wow 

okay and that was the main reason for 

actually doing it they were really kind 

of you know a lot of companies are 

really struggling like what benefits can 

we offer you know what can we offer our 

people that's different 

and for them that was a really big 

driving point was their recruitment kind 

of Drive they can then you know that's a 

massive benefit that a lot of companies 

don't offer or can't offer you know for 

them that was so important because they 

were like okay you know we've got all of 

these benefits already but actually this 

is an added benefit on top you know it's 

it's so important for a lot of people 

and when you when you present these 

facts with the to the man just 

leadership teams to the CEOs and all 

that there's no there's no kind of 

refuting this and they said all the 

clients I spoken to they said top down 

from the CEO down everyone was happy wow 

let's be honest everyone wants happy 

people to come into work people aren't 

stressed about you know getting their 

getting their errands done on a Saturday 

or Sunday when they want to relax and 

things like that so that extra day gives 

so much they were almost selling it as 

like a a self day sort of thing you know 

when do you have time to car mot when do 

you have time to do all your chores and 

with that you get two days of the week 

well most people on their kind of money 

to Friday get two days at the weekend 

you know that's two days one day let's 

say you spend doing all your chores and 

all the your car mot yeah you know 

you're shopping your housework all of 

that stuff that leaves you into only one 

day to actually enjoy so they a lot of 

them they use it only another person was 

saying that they're using it to do a 

cipd so they're using it to learn a 

complete other kind of you know when 

would you have time to do that whether 

on a full-time working week it's very 

difficult 

that will help her in the current room 

yeah of course and a couple of them a 

lot of people have mentioned on their 

their day off they've actually still 

been kind of meeting up and doing stuff 

together but to work on their selves 

within the business so like you say 

training courses they've been doing 

management courses but they're doing it 

together because it's still you know 

it's still a day that you should be 

working you know they've been used to 

working on that day so actually let's 

get together let's do something that's 

going to be productive for us and for 

the business so there's you know it's 

different size but you don't have to 

obviously that's their choice to do that 

but actually that's going to help them 

the long run in their job when it comes 

well it's going to make their job easier 

in the long run as well so there's so 

many options with it yeah and an 

interesting thing that that I've seen 

was that the employees have made a 

compromise as well so it's not all about 

taking out we're going to have an extra 

day off and things like that they have 

compromise like you said earlier I'm 

gonna jump on my laptop on that Friday 

and spend a couple of hours just to make 

sure I'm on top of things just make sure 

you don't yeah because let's be honest 

everyone wanted at the end of this trial 

they wanted this trial to be a success 

so they kind of stepped it up a little 

bit and it has shown in the in the stats 

like they've some of the companies 

compared the the trial period to sim to 

the same period in in previous years and 

some of them have found up to 35 

increase in productivity and revenue 

which is amazing so overall yeah it 

seems to have been on the surface a 

success and again it's not just success 

from the employee employee's point of 

view is from both sides having both 

sides being being aligned to this is 

is really impressive yeah and just 

looking at this step 

said that no that no money would make 

them except to five days schedule in 

their next job which is it's honestly 

when we spoke to so a couple we've 

obviously spoken to a couple of our 

clients that do do it and they said 

going from a five-day working week to go 

into a four day working week so when 

they did the trial obviously they went 

back up to a five-day working week 

and they said they were all exhausted 

after the five-day working because they 

were so used to doing four days for I 

think was it three months they did it 

four or something like that and so 

yeah they did it four days for that 

amount of time when they got back to 

five days again apparently they got to 

the Friday everyone was like oh my God 

like completely dying off sort of thing 

yeah but yeah I mean that just shows 

they really appreciated then when they 

went back onto the trial again back to 

the four day working week it gave them 

that extra bit of appreciation to be 

like oh my God we can do it we clearly 

can do it in these four days and we're 

more productive for it I mean a lot of 

them were saying how you know they've 

slimmed down their meetings to you know 

half an hour only essential meetings 

because your time's more precious you 

only have four days to do your job the 

same amount of work yeah let's not waste 

our time I'm doing meetings that are 

irrelevant let's not waste our time you 

know doing things that we don't need to 

do we'll do what needs to happen you 

know the absolute Essentials to then so 

we can enjoy that day off you know and I 

guess prioritising yes prioritising 

productivity raises you know you can't 

if you want to be off on that Friday 

you've got to make sure all your work's 

done yeah before that happens you know 

so that's important what I've seen is a 

lot of Managers from companies that I've 

spoken to that have done this trial 

I've actually implemented having a every 

meeting that they book can be 30 minutes 

an hour cut off 15 minutes at the end 

every single minute every single year 

every single minute so you have that 15 

minute extra that day to do anything 

else that adds up 

somewhere it does add up so everyone's 

kind of trying different things to see 

what will work and there's obviously 

going to be a few years but yeah 

people are starting to do the right 

things and it's showing in how the 

employees are reacting to this so if we 

look at the stats around the employee 

satisfaction and the well-being and 

things like that because at the end of 

the day this is probably what it is 

absolutely 

so if we're looking at burnout over 70 

percent have said that they've had a 

decrease in Burnout and have reaching 

that point in in their in their working 

week or month 

we had about half of them saying that 

they've had a mental health improvement 

around half of them has said It felt a 

reduction in negative emotions coming 

into work that anxiety I know I've come 

to work some days and my my heart was 

pulsing and things like that so not 

having that and kind of coming into work 

with the fresh 

you know pair of eyes and a relaxed 

mindset will help you help you be more 

productive and come up with new ideas 

and be more be more creative in your 

work which ultimately leads to to 

do you think that do you think that's 

because people are more productive in 

the four days that they're here so 

they're getting more things done or do 

you think it's because they're having 

more time to relax probably a bit of 

both let's be honest I mean the more 

time you have to rest and recover the 

more productive you're going to be the 

more refreshed you're going to be like 

when you've had a holiday for example 

you I mean it deposit does depend on the 

person some people come back a little 

have the holiday blues and whatnot but 

normally you feel a bit more refreshed 

you can get your head straight back into 

it you know it's it gives you time to 

rest and recover before you have to get 

straight back to work again you know I 

think it's a bit of both let's say some 

people use that extra day to work out or 

do some exercise or anything like that 

and that obviously helps yeah with so 

many things like mental health fatigue 

physical health and all that which 

again goes into having a good mental 

health and being able to kind of be 

productive at work so yeah I think 

overall having that extra days like you 

said a mixture of trying to 

perform better in those four days in a 

more limited period of time but also be 

more relaxed and able to do your work 

better and more effectively so it's 

given them a lot more help towards the 

health and well-being and obviously 

that's had an effect on their family 

life as well I imagine because they're 

spending more time at home absolutely so 

we've got over 70 of the employees that 

have been surveyed have said they have a 

greater satisfaction 

with their time 

we're able to combine their work with 

with kind of care responsibilities 

which is also a lot of a lot of people 

do have those responsibilities be child 

parents or whatever 

also a lot of them about 60 have said 

it it was easier for them to combine 

social life 

so being able to kind of see their 

friends more often and all of that 

having that extra day bring you can see 

all these things that kind of add up and 

so many more things you can do 

having having you know time to call your 

 your friends or someone that lives 

far away you haven't seen in a while 

again gives you that little yeah because 

I guess you could do something to say 

you didn't work on the Friday you could 

do something on the Thursday night which 

because you wouldn't normally do that 

yeah of course absolutely absolutely so 

was this trial only conducted in the UK 

so no actually it was a global 

initiative UK had the most com most 

companies that signed up for this but 

it actually worked across the UK U.S 

Canada Australia New Zealand 

so about 

close to 100 companies in total across 

those countries have have joined this 

this trial about 3500 workers so

again across the board and all those 

other companies and in countries 

the trials were rated highly similar 

kind of statistics and surveys from the 

employees productivity going up business 

performance scoring well Revenue going 

up as well so it wasn't just isolated to 

the UK this was a global thing and I'm 

sure more and more companies will be 

will be joining this jumping on the 

Obama do you think do you think that's 

the case I think so I mean when we have 

asked our clients to already do the 

four-day working week you know what are 

the negatives here you know what have 

you struggled with what are the barriers 

they really struggle to come back to us 

with any negatives you know you know 

because what these guys that we've 

spoken to have been doing is they've 

been kind of like surveying their 

workers kind of throughout 

every Monday they were putting kind 

of like surveys out to people and it 

wasn't just about work it was about how 

do you feel you know how's your mental 

health how are your stress levels are 

you feeling pressure because you've got 

to do it in a short amount of time they 

were really very thorough with their 

questions they were asking I think 

that's really important because you need 

to find out is this working for us in 

the way that we want it to you know is 

this working for us for the reason that 

we wanted to you know we want people to 

be productive we want people to feel 

like they can come to work and do the 

things they need to do in the time frame 

they've got because the worst thing is 

running out of time all the time that 

was one of the things they thought would 

be a struggle but in actual fact when I 

asked them what were the negatives they 

kind of looked at each other like 

once they'd kind of worked out the 

teething problems you know because 

obviously like there's some areas of a 

business that really struggle with the 

four day working with because of what 

they have to do you know once they've 

worked around those barriers and kind of 

worked out different things for these 

kind of teams they were like actually 

the people who were doing the four-day 

working week there was no negative you 

know everyone was really happy to trial 

it and you don't have to do it if you 

don't want to do it as well you know 

those people that are in these 

businesses they don't have to work four 

days if they don't want to they can 

continue doing what they were doing 

before is an option you don't not forced 

to do it type of thing but I mean it 

sounded like everyone was in for it I 

mean I would be very in for it I 

wouldn't say no I mean overall you know 

we're looking at this from an employee's 

perspective and how great it is for them 

and things like that but again we're 

looking at the stats and the companies 

are benefiting from this and do not get 

a good good positive impact on 

businesses then you look at the climate 

and the mental health and all this it 

just brings about a wider positive 

impact on the world rather than just 

focusing oh they've got an extra day and 

a lot of people do look at it simplistic 

way but no actually it does have a 

greater impact 

it sounds like people really appreciate 

having the four-day working week as well 

because it sounds like from what we've 

heard from both employees and from the 

kind of you know the managers sort of 

side of things people are working harder 

because they're like well you know we've 

been getting we've been giving a lot of 

benefits here we've got all all these 

lovely things why wouldn't we work hard 

for a company who's going to you know 

give us these benefits so actually 

they've found you know there wasn't any 

stats that had gone down was that 

everything was more productive you know 

more flexible for everyone everyone was 

getting more stuff done the company was 

earning more money they were retaining 

more more staff as well that was their 

main thing retention was really 

difficult a lot of companies struggle 

with retention especially in this day 

and age when there's so many options 

salaries are all the way up you know 

there's a lot of important factors that 

people look for in a job now and this 

has massively helped them retain their 

staff and that's important because 

recruitment costs money of course it 

does you know it takes time it costs 

money it it's important it's a big big 

part of the business you don't have the 

right people there it's not going to go 

well so yeah I mean retention is so 

important and that's something that 

they've found they've stuck with it's 

gone really really well and it's 

enticing more people want to actually 

work for your company as well because as 

soon as you put a four day working week 

on a job advert oh my God you go from 10 

applicants to 10 000 applicants you know 

everyone's honesty is better than 

putting a six figure salary it really is 

it really is people find it because 

money yes 

yes important but actually your time you 

know you're spending time with your 

family you're spending time with your 

friends you're spending time for you 

that's more important to anyone that's 

that there's no monetary value for that 

that's your life you know and given 

people that option to have it I think 

it's one of the best things you can do 

in a weird way it's a pandemic that kind 

of set this set this trend out and 

they showed people that you can be 

productive by not necessarily because 

let's be honest the five-day working 

week this Monday the Friday I think it's 

a 100 year old thing it's it's new thing 

so it it's obviously not going to be 

right all the time eventually it's going 

to evolve into something better and so 

on so we're looking at that kind of 

evolution at this point where the 

precipice of what's the next thing that 

will help us we're at the point in in 

you know with technology that we're at a 

point where it can automate so many 

things that I'm probably doing so let's 

say 10 20 times more now than someone 

in my position would have been doing 20 

years ago just because of this 

automation all these job boards all 

these tools that we have at our disposal 

why not use them to make our lives 

easier exactly so um yeah I think it's 

going in the right direction and like I 

said I'm more than happy to be speaking 

to leaders not only the employees that 

love this and kind of oh I've been 

loving doing this and I've gained so 

much talking to leadership and the ctOS 

and so on they're saying I like this I 

want to put this you know if I move 

on somewhere else I'm gonna try to 

implement this because of these things 

and it's factual it's all it's all 

numbers on you know black and white at 

the end of the day so no one can say 

anything about it it's you know 

increased revenue increase productivity 

happiness retention which is a big thing 

all these will lead to like I said a 

positive kind of um you know or a 

promising 

song that's main thing is it has to 

be done right as well you can't expect 

it's just what you can't just jump into 

it with all day working week and just 

expect it to work do you think you 

should do a trial first yeah it sounds 

like that seems to be the best option 

because 

you know you could just jump straight 

into it it might work out fabulous but I 

think it needs to work for everyone and 

I think the trials are what kind of give 

people the appreciation when they do go 

back to the five-day working week you go 

oh wow this is very very different we 

did this in four days when I'm doing it 

in five why do we need to do this it 

kind of gives you that that mindset of 

we can do it so let's do it but the the 

ease into it and how you go about it I 

think is very important and that's 

something that we can absolutely look 

into more the more people do it the more 

we'll see kind of oh this works really 

well this works really well but I think 

yeah it's got to be a slow ease into it 

it's got to work for your company 

because what will work for us might not 

work for you know the next company here 

you know Law Firm is going to be very 

very different to a recruitment Agency 

for example or a large firm exactly a 

smaller business a bigger business it's 

obviously going to work very very 

different so it's got to work for you 

you've got to find your kind of route 

for how it works but I mean there's 

going to be more and more and more of 

this happening so there's gonna be more 

that you can just kind of pull out yeah 

they've tried this let's do that oh 

they've tried this let's do that and I 

think that's going to be a very 

important part that don't give up on it 

do it properly or like you said they 

tried it in the summer and they realised 

that it was the wrong turn yeah exactly 

so how long was the trial so at first 

they did over the summer for three 

months and then they said oh that didn't 

work out well so they started then from 

September to December so basically three 

months yeah September October November 

yeah you can't count so four months they 

said let's add another month to it four 

months most people were in the office 

at that point so they were able to well 

actually the remote first company but 

most people were working so they were 

able to kind of get all the information 

that they needed but like you said this 

this will be popping up more and more 

because if you look at Scandinavian 

countries for example they've been doing 

this for years we're behind really when 

you look through the kind of global side 

of it if you look at Spain now they've 

implemented now 

having all women have one day off per 

month as a menstrual day off something 

like that paid as well which is 

incredible I think so small little 

trials of small little actions are 

happening around the world it will 

ultimately lead to us being you know 

more more happy and more kind of better 

balance between life and work because at 

the end of the day we're here for eight 

eight hours a day we sleep for eight 

hours and we have eight hours to do you 

know whatever we want to do so it's a 

big part of our life so one might as 

well kind of make it more pleasant I 

mean let's be honest before kind of the 

pandemic hit and all of that a lot of 

companies didn't do working from home or 

couldn't offer it or anything like that 

so it kind of gets to a point of you 

know initially that was kind of 

unimaginable I couldn't imagine working 

in recruitment agency and working from 

home it just didn't seem fabinable but 

then when we were kind of forced to do 

it it happened and now it's actually 

probably more hybrid working and remote 

working now than there is actually going 

into the office so I kind of see this is 

the same thing you know it's a few 

companies are doing it a few people are 

doing it four day working week it's 

working really well I think it's going 

to kind of hit and it's going to be a 

boom I think eventually it's not going 

to be a Monday to Friday anymore it's 

going to be Monday to Thursday or 

whatever but that will be the new norm 

sort of thing and I hope it is because 

it seems to be working I mean we've not 

come across hardly any negative kind of 

side to this 

and the majority of the companies 

that took part are going are going 

forward with it yeah and will it be 

monitored or are they just deciding that 

they're going to deal with it and so 

they've got the the companies I spoke to 

have a at least one person in maybe the 

data team or one of the backup back 

office teams and things like they will 

be monitoring this including all this 

data even after the trial even once we 

implemented because they do want to want 

to make sure that it doesn't fall South 

you know people don't don't fall back on 

it and say oh now we're going to relax a 

little bit they want to make sure this 

does continue but it's again looking 

promising I've spoke to some clients for 

four months into into 2023 and they 

said nothing's really changed we've had 

it for four months now and it's it's 

been going well so hopefully people 

don't fall back obviously you're always 

going to have those rotten eggs in the 

company they'll be uh you know messing 

things around but 

seems to be a minority at the moment so 

watch this space then 

week may start to be implemented across 

the UK sounds good to me I'll take it 

if you have any last comments before we 

we move on to our last task of the day 

in all honesty I think it would be a 

very very good thing if companies at 

least tried in I think every company has 

to try it yeah because you know don't be 

wrong if you don't have a company that 

I'm not interested in it you know for 

example if you're a hairdressers I can't 

see how that would be productive to do a 

four-day working week you know obviously 

it's business to business kind of 

relative but when you're looking at 

Office business office businesses 

offices and general kind of you know 

companies like that I can't see it being 

a harm when you look at these statistics 

you've got it written in black and white 

there why would you not just try it try 

it and see what happens if it doesn't 

work out you can go back to the norm 

it's not going to affect anything it's 

fine but I think it's worth a shot and 

hopefully my fingers are crossed that 

it's going to become a thing Monday to 

Thursday the new working week I'm in for 

it absolutely 

so just to add up on that because that's 

you basically nailed it nailed on the 

head we have all the tools available now 

to make this happen yeah absolutely I 

can help any company out there they want