Close Menu
  • News
  • Home
  • In Profile
  • Finance
  • Legal
  • Technology
  • Events
  • Features
  • Wellbeing & Mental Health
  • Marketing
  • HR & Recruitment
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Events Calendar
  • Business Wall
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • 0843 289 4634
X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
Trending
  • Handheld Laser Scanners Drive New Growth For Sep Geospatial In Unlikely Sectors
  • Loughborough’s Here Self Storage Hits 65% Occupancy As Local Demand Grows
  • Tool theft legislation and steps to protect your tools
  • Why Digital Excellence is key to transforming Business Culture
  • Busting myths about Asset Based Lending 
  • Self-driving cars could hit UK roads sooner than you expect, says Heligan Group
  • New Venture Aims To Help Propel Growth For Start-Ups
  • Building community, one cause at a time
X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
SME Today
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Events Calendar
  • Business Wall
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • 0843 289 4634
  • News
  • Home
  • In Profile
  • Finance
  • Legal
  • Technology
  • Events
  • Features
  • Wellbeing
  • Marketing
  • HR & Recruitment
SME Today
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Events Calendar
  • Business Wall
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • 0843 289 4634
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • RSS
You are at:Home»HR & Recruitment»How viable is a four-day week for SMEs?
4 or 5 day work week symbol.

How viable is a four-day week for SMEs?

0
Posted By sme-admin on March 14, 2022 HR & Recruitment

The news that the UK was to launch a four-day working week pilot recently shook the country and wider business circles. The trial will see 30 companies move to a 32-hour week for six months, while employees receive the same pay and benefits. This follows a similar move from Iceland, which undertook the world’s largest ever four-day week trial between 2015 and 2019, which found that productivity remained the same or improved in the majority of workplaces. But whether the UK trial will emulate such success is yet to be seen.

Aliya Vigor-Robertson, Co-founder, JourneyHRHowever, while the idea of an extended weekend sounds tempting, how viable is this in practice, especially for a small or medium-sized business (SME)?

Aliya Vigor-Robertson, Co-founder of female-founded HR agency JourneyHR provides some insight.

Calendar juggling

Perhaps the most pressing priority when considering a shift to this increasingly popular business model is whether you will adopt a rotation system or shift to a set four days, with everyone out of the office at the same time. Author Alex Soojung-Kim Pang has argued that if businesses renewed their focus on productivity, everyone could achieve what they need to within four days. Drawing on their latest book, Shorter: Work Better, Smarter, and Less—Here’s How, Pang also suggested that employees waste a significant amount of time in unnecessary meetings.

But such an approach could have an impact on collaboration and company culture. Would businesses have to cut the informal catch-ups that often boost wellbeing and morale to make way for this strict, focused approach? A business must have both – an extra day of a weekend is a fantastic perk, but not if it comes attached to an intense week, driven by authoritarian guidelines.

Watching the clock

Leaders will also need to carefully consider whether removing a working day will just tip commitments into the remaining four, creating much longer days. This is a particularly pressing risk for smaller firms, who often must strike a fine balance between work done and employees on staff. The success of these new working models is entirely dependent on the management teams in charge and their ability to control workflow without comprising on business output or employee wellbeing.

Turning green

It is also vital that reduced days do not create a divide or feelings of resentment among teams. Would you grow resentful of a colleague who had been allocated a Friday off work, if you had been allocated a Wednesday off for example? This risk could be overcome with a set day off for all, or a rotation system, but these are not without risk either.

It is also important to consider whether everyone will want a four-day week. The media speculation suggests that such a model is widely supported, but not everyone will be keen. Some may find the prospect of cramming five days’ work into four daunting. Introducing seismic changes such as this without consulting your team is often the cause of a mass exodus, so it’s important to assess demand before making changes.

Try before you buy

Leading on from this, a trial implementation can be a great ‘try before you buy’ opportunity to see whether such a model works in practice. Not only can this help prevent problems further down the road, but it can also help employees see such a way of working in practice, and provide them the opportunity to share their thoughts, adding to an important sense of being hear and valued.

Larger companies have the luxury to pilot a new model in certain teams or even branches, smaller firms cannot and would therefore have to assess the risk before even considering a trial. For example, one of our clients, The7stars, introduced a fantastic test with a team of around 30 people, allowing them the option to choose a day off every fortnight. To ensure activity did not become unmanageable in light of the shift, the team ensured that 90% of staff were in every day during the second week.

It is clear then that a four-day week can pose a bigger risk to a smaller firm, as they have leaner teams and resources to pick up any sudden uptick in activity. In spite of this, if businesses find they are unable to support a shorter working week, there are a myriad of other perks that they can offer to their teams to usher in a new era of flexibility. Giving employees the option to choose start and finish times, and unlimited holidays are two such perks that can give employees the flexibility they may be craving.  However, regardless of how, decisions made to your business and its way of work should be driven from the inside rather than external news sources to maximise success.Journey HR

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

Related Posts

5 Reasons Why Every Office Should Include Flexible Spaces to Work and Their Key Benefits

Leading the future: Redefining leadership in the era of agentic AI

If Your Company Isn’t Thriving, Your Culture Might Be the Problem

Comments are closed.

Follow SME Today on Linkedin and share all the topics you find interesting
Verify your identity for Companies House

The Newsletter

Join our mailing list for the best SME stories, handpicked and delivered direct to your inbox every two weeks!

Sign Up
Events Calendar
    • Marketing
    July 7, 2025

    Bold Business Marketing Specialist Speaks In Swindon This Week

    July 4, 2025

    How Generative AI is Giving SMEs a Marketing Edge

    • Finance
    July 14, 2025

    Busting myths about Asset Based Lending 

    July 10, 2025

    How to build a £1 million pension and ISA portfolio

    • Health & Safety
    July 1, 2025

    Temperatures Soaring: Is Your Workplace Becoming Unsafe?

    January 29, 2025

    UK takeaways guilty of shocking hygiene failures:

    • Events
    July 4, 2025

    £20k grant for female-founded SME up for grabs

    July 2, 2025

    As Seen on BBC Panorama – Brad Burton to Headline The South West Expo in Swindon

    • Community
    July 11, 2025

    Building community, one cause at a time

    June 23, 2025

    Celebrating One Year In Fairford Supporting The Community

    • Food & Drink
    June 23, 2025

    England Cricket Captain, Ben Stokes OBE, takes a stake in Spencer Matthews’ alcohol-free spirits brand, CleanCo

    June 16, 2025

    Hospitality industry risks collapse

    • Books
    April 24, 2025

    Values-Driven Professionalism: A Path to Client Loyalty

    December 2, 2024

    Banish the banshee boss: how to lead without fear – addressing the issue of fear-based management and how NOT to be this manager

    About

    SME Today is published by the same team who deliver The Great British Expos’. We have been organising various corporate events for the last 10 years, with a strong track record of producing well managed and attended business events across the UK.

    Join Our Mailing List

    Receive the latest news and updates from SMEToday.
    Read our Latest Newsletter:


    Sign Up
    X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    Most Recent Posts
    July 15, 2025

    Handheld Laser Scanners Drive New Growth For Sep Geospatial In Unlikely Sectors

    July 15, 2025

    Loughborough’s Here Self Storage Hits 65% Occupancy As Local Demand Grows

    July 15, 2025

    Tool theft legislation and steps to protect your tools

    July 15, 2025

    Why Digital Excellence is key to transforming Business Culture

    July 14, 2025

    Busting myths about Asset Based Lending 

    Categories
    • Books
    • Community & Charity
    • Education and Training
    • Environment
    • Events
    • Features
    • Finance
    • Food and Drink
    • Health & Safety
    • HR & Recruitment
    • In Profile
    • Legal
    • Marketing
    • News
    • Property & Development
    • Sponsored Content
    • Technology
    • Transport & Tourism
    • Wellbeing & Mental Health

    Copyright © 2020 SME Today.

    • ABOUT SME TODAY: THE GO TO RESOURCE FOR UK BUSINESSES
    • Editorial Submission Guidelines
    • Privacy
    • Contact
    Copyright © 2025 SME Today.
    • ABOUT SME TODAY: THE GO TO RESOURCE FOR UK BUSINESSES
    • Editorial Submission Guidelines
    • Privacy
    • Contact

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.