'You're better rested and can go hard for four days'- The benefits of working a 4-day week when lockdown ends, according to those already doing it

Scotland's First Minister says a four-day working week could become the new norm, with children set to be schooled at home part-time from August under the Scottish Government's four-phase 'route map' out of lockdown.

The Scotsman spoke to the bosses of two firms already using the working pattern - Edinburgh-based tech company Administrate and Glasgow-based digital marketing firm Pursuit - to find out what it’s like, and both say now is the time for employers to try it.

Administrate

Company bosses in Edinburgh and Glasgow have talked about how switching to a four-day week has affected them and why others should look at doing the same.

The company, which provides training software, switched to the four-day model five years ago and its CEO, John Peebles, feels productivity has matched - if not increased from - that of the five day week.

Staff are paid a five day wage but they work 32 hours a week over four days. About 50 employees are based in Edinburgh with another 25 each in Lebanon and the USA.

The 38-year-old, who describes himself as a former 'work-aholic', says he was “genuinely scared" of getting fired when he suggested the change to the company board - but they tried it for about six months and felt it worked better.

John says the company has become one of the top tech growth start-ups in Scotland over the last 10 years, even when benchmarked against companies working five or seven-day weeks.

John Peebles, CEO of Edinburgh-based tech firm Administrate.

He says key benefits of the extra day include giving parents more time with their families, such as taking children to and from school, and having space to think which he believes enhances creativity.

Speaking from his Edinburgh home on Friday, he said: "Humans struggle with maintaining sustained focus, let alone since iPhones came along, and work requires discipline. You need the space for down time with your brain to be creative.

"Right now, I'm messing about in my flat and cooking a bit for tonight and what happens is something comes into your head and I find myself really surprised about getting my best ideas. You are better rested and can go hard for four days.

"There's a tendency to think that it could work for some weird start-up with young people and that it won't work for our business but why not try it as a pilot for the next six to eight weeks? What's the worst that can happen?

Lorraine Gray, director of Glasgow-based Pursuit Marketing.

"There is something about the efficiency and discipline required which makes it work."

Practically, he says, it might mean teaching team members to be as efficient as possible with sticking to 25 minute meetings instead of letting them run on an hour, or to email as much as possible in the shorter hours available to be more productive. Longer lunch breaks or early finishes for 'happy hours' is something they never do.

With the coronavirus pandemic, John says he was initially concerned about business but has found opportunities opening up in areas like healthcare, including one customer in the US which needed training platforms for healthcare professionals explaining how to use ventilators to treat Covid-19 patients.

Pursuit

Pursuit Marketing director Lorraine Gray says productivity increased by 37 per cent within the first three months of introducing their four-day working week in September 2016. Since then, productivity has steadied out at about 29 per cent above what they were doing in the previous five-day model.

The digital and telemarketing sales firm, which has nearly 100 employees in its Finnieston office in Glasgow and another 50 in Malaga, is effectively a call centre which generates sales opportunities for tech firms including Google, Microsoft and Samsung.

Lorraine says: "With Covid-19, more people are working from home and it makes people think the work is achievable if they are getting results, and this gives employers the confidence it could work.

"Make sure you communicate and speak to your team about what benefits them. We have some staff who do term time work and come in and leave for school at 3:30pm, so reduced hours are definitely the way forward with part time schooling. Speaking to employees is key, as there's no one rule for all."

Lorraine says industries like manufacturing might feel shutting down on a Friday simply doesn’t work for them, but she says it can be worked around with employees doing different four-day stints.

She says her staff work the same hours as before - 8:45am to 5pm - but from Monday to Thursday and employees can come in on Fridays if they want to meet targets for their bonus, although she says they are already achieving that in four days.

The 40-year-old says discipline is key to that and, if everyone was honest, time before spent chatting too long to colleagues is now being used more wisely, with everyone wanting to go in for four days and "smash it" to get the three day break afterwards.

Lorraine also says the extra day gives people the chance to see more of their families, do some housework or go and buy the shopping.

And she says the staff sickness rate has been "practically zero" since they switched to four days, which is unheard of in the sector.

What Nicola Sturgeon said

The absence of youngsters from school for long periods is likely to have major ramifications for parents trying to arrange childcare and subsequent knock-on for their return to work and business activity. It is likely to mean a major overhaul in the way society operates, with flexible working patterns set to become increasingly prevalent.

After the Scottish Government published its document on how the country plans to come out of lockdown, Ms Sturgeon told MSPs: “While we want to repair things and get things back to normal, we’ve got to also take care not to simply slip back into old and bad ways of doing things.”

“There are opportunities for change here and I think all of us want to grasp that.

“What I’ve just announced on schools will, potentially for a considerable period of time, give parents a very difficult balancing act between the need to work and the need to care for children when children are at home rather than in school.

“That is one reason, not the only reason, why we have to look at different working patterns. Things like a four-day week now are no longer things we should just be talking about, these are things we should be encouraging employers to look at embracing.”