Four-day week pilot project begins with 70 companies and over 3,000 workers Business

More than 70 companies across the country will allow staff to work a four-day week after the pandemic “shifted the goal posts” on office life.

More than 3,000 people working for 70 companies, including the Royal Society of Biology and a fish and chip shop in Norfolk, will work a shorter week with no loss to pay from Monday to December under a nationwide pilot scheme that could transform the professional life in Brittany.

Sources said at least one FTSE 100 company with hundreds of thousands of employees is also closing in on its own plan to pilot a six-month, four-day working week at one of its offices in the UK. foreign.

The move could be unveiled imminently, but would be separate from the national program which begins on Monday, which claims to be the largest four-day pilot in the world. It is led by academics from Cambridge and Oxford Universities as well as Boston College, who, alongside think tank Autonomy and the UK’s 4 Day Week campaign, will measure the impact of a shorter week.

“We will analyze how employees react to an extra day off, in terms of stress and burnout, job and life satisfaction, health, sleep, energy consumption, travel and many other aspects of life,” said Juliet Schor, the manager. pilot researcher and professor at Boston College.

Ed Siegel, chief executive of Charity Bank, which is taking part in the trial, said: “We have long been a champion of flexible working, but the pandemic has really shifted the focus in this regard. For Charity Bank, the move to a four-day week seems a natural next step.”

UK businesses aren’t the only ones considering drastically changing the working week. A trial in Iceland cutting some public sector work from 40 to 35 hours has already been called a ‘overwhelming success’ by researchers, while in Spain the government uses 50 million euros from the EU bailout to fund a three-year trial involving approximately 200 companies and 6,000 employees.

A survey by Be The Business last year found that more than 50% of companies were willing to abandon the traditional workweek as cutting working hours can increase employee productivity.

However, any move to cut working hours is likely to be controversial as some bosses complain post-pandemic work attitudes have become too flexible, with flexible working becoming the norm. Christian Ulbrich, chief executive of real estate giant JLL, said last month that workers are now demanding “pop star” treatment and four-day weekends.