This intention to go from a five day week to a four day week for local authorities but still being paid the same has me puzzled.
For instance at a basic level, would a lollipop man/ woman only work four days, then be paid overtime for the fifth day thus getting a 20% rise for doing the same job…?
It seems Councils act as though all their employees work at a desk in offices when they plainly don’t.
Best of luck trying to work that one out..
Just an afterthought…if they can squeeze five days work into four days, they can’t have been working very hard before that can they. Jeez.

I already work 4 days a week - will that mean I'll get a pay rise?

It’s definitely a bad idea for the public sector in this country. That’s not to say it hasn’t been proven to increase productivity in other countries like Japan, Iceland and around Scandinavia. It needs strong management though, better defined work loads and clear deadlines. Fundamentally you need to understand what a good days work looks like, to provide a baseline to measure productivity against. Culturally, I just don’t see that often enough in UK workplaces, never mind councils.

There's a story in one of today's newspapers about airport delays during the summer when an IT system crashed and the engineer was working from home.
Apparently, because the system had crashed, he couldn't log in to see what the problem was which resulted in a massive delay while he was trying to get from home in to work.
I wonder who thought having IT staff working from home, during the busiest time of the year, was a good idea?

Unsurprisingly the only people who have been consulted with on this have been the beneficiaries of the policy, the employees.
What about the people who pay the wages or use the services, surely council tax payers should have a say?
There's no way in the world that you'll get equivalent productivity from home workers versus office workers, or from those working 4 days a week versus 5, let alone those working 4 days a week from home!

I have no problem with people ‘working’ from home in certain circumstances, but surely you have to be more productive in a work environment….far too many distractions at home, no matter what some might say.
This action, apart from the impracticality of it would indicate a 25% increase in productivity which is utterly ridiculous I did seven years in work study and if someone had claimed a 25% increase in productivity my boss would have ordered a Court of Enquiry when he’d stopped laughing and his trousers dried out.

I would argue the exact opposite Snowy. People working one day a week - never mind four - is a complete waste of time, resources and energy.

It's high-time that we all get the Utopia of robots doing everything for us that we've been promised from the mid-1970s onwards...

I am on a zero hours contract, i do zero hours. I am retired.

Kenny, if I can call you that…I agree …working zero hours was always my target too, but we were all brainwashed as kids by those TV ‘experts’, who convinced us by 1990 we’d be going to the Moon with Bee Line for a week on Fireball XL5.
By the way, when the robots take over they’ll decide we’re surplus to requirements and end up on the land.

a lot is dependant on what jobs they all do. You can work a longer day to get all your hours and work in over 4 days rather than 5. in other jobs someone needs to be around every day of the week if work is carried out on those days. always remember the pointless alternate saturday mornings we had to do when there was no work to be done as it was all done by friday afternoon anyway. bin collection is one that could easily be a 4 day week job thats if the workers can be productive doing a longer day than they do now as i,m not totally convinced they would as boredom and tiredness can set in later in their shift.

They can’t do a longer day..it’s like going from say 40 hours to 32 hours literally ….and if they can do it in 32 hours instead of 40 what have they been doing up till now…and who chose not to notice it.

why cannot they do a longer day. i can remember when on the buses we went from a 6 day doing 6 hour 40 shifts to 5 eight hour ones to get the 40 hours a week in. just before i left coventry in 2003 they were in discussions doing a 4 day week of 9 hours 30 minutes which for me was far too long so i got out whilst the going was good.

Because their hours have to be reduced from five days to four days, so they now have to fit it into four days (for the same pay) what the did in five days…

no the day will or can be extended over the 4 working days to the same amount of work they did in 5. the agreed working week whatever it is does not need to change. nobody expects to work the same hours for 4 days instead of doing 5 for the same money. its more about getting an extra day not working. cannot see whats wrong with that if the length of the day is deemed not to be too long. its costing nobody anything but could save on one days lighting and heating.

Your request has been placed in Rajs in tray

1st fundamental turn mobiles off whilst being paid to work.

The problems I've seen with "condensed" hours (40 hours over 4 days rather than 5 days) is that any problems that occur need to be handled by 20% fewer people and people mainly choose to remove Monday or Friday from their working week to make the weekend longer.

Imagine trying to get in contact with any local government office on a Friday, it's almost impossible now when they are meant to be fully staffed.

They will be working a four day week for which they will be paid for a five day week…because they claim they can squeeze their five days into four.
In other words 40 hours pay for a 32 hour week…..Crazy but that’s what they’re doing.

I thought it was 4 x 10 hour shifts

If it was four 10 hour shifts it would be no problem, not that I’d fancy it.
The argument is over being paid five days pay for four days work as they say they can squeeze five days into four.
I’ll believe it when I see it.

Yes I agree.

You can shorten it to Ken if you like mate - and I'll call you Snarr-ee because I live in Yackerland these days..!

You may remember the pilot scheme we had for this a few years ago, which went under the name of COVID. I was made redundant at the time, and haven't worked since then. I can highly recommend it as there's only our lass telling me what to do now, and like most married men I learned how to filter her voice out many years ago.

I think it was Mr Collins at Rift House Juniors who first told me that I'd have a Jetpac and loads of robots by the year 2000, but like a lot of teachers he was full of shit.

Our lass has got a robotic hoover and an air fryer though, so I guess he wasn't too far off the mark...

I was planning for retirement at the age of 19!
Anyway when the day came (after being asked to stay on an extra year by my boss) I jumped ship and swam ashore to retirement and it was brilliant…..then I got some really terrible news that filled me with dread….the wife said she was going to call it a day too
And suddenly retirement became more like work than work…bastard….because when you wake up you enter into the ‘on the job till your head hits the pillow’ phase…So I built my own bunker at the bottom of the Garden….bliss

who actually works a 40 hour week anymore. 35, 36 and 38 seem the popular ones now.

Very rarely worked a 40 hour week in my life, the basic week was 37.5 hours then 4 x half shifts with Saturday and Sunday were sometimes added. Contracting couldn’t exist on 4 days yes it could provide more employment doing 4 on 4 off cycle but we don’t have enough skilled Labour to fulfil the hours.
I knew a great lad who worked maintenance for a pharmaceutical company, he never worked overtime. He took early retirement and died suddenly aged 58 years old with a heart attack.

Me still work 40 hours but only get paid for 37.5.
Hopefully Starmer n Union bring an end to this next summer. :angry-tappingfoot

40 hrs is used a guide by the media purely as an example…(I worked a 37.5 hr week ) you the decide the ratio on individual circumstances…you simply take 20% off your working hours……but still get paid the full amount…which is why there’s all the bloody fuss about.
Only applies in the state sector though.

I work 44 hours but get paid time and a half after 37.5. If I work a Saturday, which I usually do, it goes to double time after 6 hours. Sunday is all double time. My shifts are 7.30am - 5.30pm.
I'm not complaining.

PS...I'd snatch your hand off to do a 4 day week with extra hours to have a long weekend.

Do you work at EMR Kettering Depot as a train driver on a four day week, if you do you'll deffo get a pay rise in January

Sat Sun Mon

I'd rather have Friday, Saturday and Sunday off....but I'd still go in on Sunday.

OK for you, but my hours are 5am till 11.30 pm…..and no days off…. Beats going to work though.

Quite a lot of rimming going on around here these days. You didn't get this in the old days.

do not know about that. when younger we,d have had more opportunities if we wanted.