4-days working week

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Hi all, i am wondering if any of your organisations practice the 4-days working week. There are different ways of implementing it including reduction of working hours without loss of pay, comoressed hours… my organisation has a principle nobody can be contracted more than 4 days which is again different. I came across Autonomy which seems to have advise many orgs on how to implement but they are large scale do im interested to hear from more rad experiences. Let me know

Autonomy: Shorter Working Weeks - The Autonomy Institute

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Hi Clara, lots of our team do compressed hours EG 9 day fortnight (generally this means working an extra 45 mins a day and taking every other Friday off)

I would like to see evidence from charities like us who get a lot of their income from other charitable trusts if making the switch to a 'true" 4 day week (EG maintaining pay, reducing FTE to 28/30h) made them more or less fundable ETC. I worry that it could make us seem less efficient and could play against us. We already pay relatively well for the sector and sometimes get told our staffing costs are too high during bid processes.

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Thanks for raising this, @Clara - at RadHR we’ve been discussing this as well recently and are very interested in hearing others’ experiences of the different versions out there, particularly moving towards 4dpw w/ full pay.

As to @Michelle_H’s question about how funders might respond, I think this is something we could potentially all work on developing a line on together. There are so many arguments for 4 Day Weeks, which align with the values that more and more funders at least pay lip service to, so might be able to develop some ways of explaining the decision, before it is raised by funders as an issue?

Whether it’s about work-life balance, encouraging healthier and more sustainable working cultures and staff retention, or recognising that not all work is best assessed by ‘hours worked’.

But it will of course depend on if any particular funder is looking to pay for the cheapest work, or is actually interested in other factors that might improve the quality of the work… which is obvious not a given!

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I am looking at organising an online session about it with Troublemakers at Work and some Unite members from the Not For Profit sector. Is that something Rad HR may be up for cooperating on?

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Hi @Clara - sorry for the late reply - definitely interested, if not too late! If you want to email us on hello@radhr.org, we’d be keen to connect!

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Hi all, ive been liaising with Veronica from RadHR via email but the details of the online event i am organising are now live. Feel free to share, the event is open to all

The struggle for a 4-days working week
:spiral_calendar: Tuesday 4 February
:alarm_clock: 7:00 pm
:round_pushpin:online
Registration: The struggle for a 4-days working week

Join us for this online event to learn about the 4-days working week and hear from union reps’ success and campaigns for this demand. We will hear from:

  • Ben Davies, Unite rep at Shelter who have been trialling a 4 days week
  • Alex Read, PCS rep at DEFRA who are campaigning for the 4 days week
  • Delphine Schlosser, from Unite at Frontline AIDS with info on their campaign and the positive potential carbon impact of the 4-Days
  • speaker from the 4-Days week campaign (tbc)

This is a collaboration between Troublemakers At Work and Tipping Point UK.

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People may also find the website of the pfficial 4-Days week campaign of interest: https://www.4dayweek.co.uk/