Four-day week trial with 70 UK firms: trial ends, some firms make it permanent

bbc.co.uk

tldr; Full results will not be published until February, but at the halfway point 86% of companies had said they intended to make it permanent.

They defined "four-day week" as 32 hours without a reduction in pay.

There is legislation pending [0] to allow any worker to ask for a 4 day work week which sounds very week as the company can just say 'no'. Even if this passes I don't think it means anything. However, the trial is promising and it'll be interesting to see where the UK goes with this.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/dec/05/uk-staff-to-ha...

The pending legislation only move the ask to day one rather than a period of waiting. It's likely not going to help most people, as typically there is a 'probation' period anyway, and so any risk of asking would just mean failing probation.

Ah, thanks, I didn't realize that. Makes more sense now.

You've always been able to request flexible working. Yes the company can say no, but they need to assess the request and provide a specific reasoning why they can't accept it, they can't just dismiss it out of hand.

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