Bridge HR articles

Emma Grace explores the reality of this headline,

'Employers will have to offer four-day week under new plans”

………says Sky News in its recent headline.

The article then moves on to elaborate –

“employers will have to offer flexible working hours – including a four-day week – to all workers under government plans”

Is all this true?

What is a four-day week?

There are a couple of answers to this.

The standard is that someone works for four days in a normal five-day working week – effectively 0.8 of the working week – and is paid accordingly.

Another version is the “compressed hours” week where the employee or worker works for the same number of hours over the week but does so over fewer days.

However, the four-day week which has been grabbing headlines is essentially working for four days, but being paid as normal.

This is more controversial, although has been trialled successfully in places, with advocates suggesting it leads to greater retention and productivity. There are complications with this, not least being the ability to retain the business's availability and issues with part-time workers and how to “scale down” the benefit across all workers.

What are we actually talking about currently?

The reality is that we are talking about an existing right – the “right to request flexible working”.

Flexible working for employees has been a right since 2002 – originally aimed solely at those with childcare responsibilities, and usually used to help workers, mainly women, request part-time hours to enable them to remain in work whilst using childcare.

It now covers all workers and is a “day one” right – and there is no need to have a “reason” for the request.

At the date of writing, any employee can request that their employer allow them to work flexibly, by asking that they vary their contract in some way.

Employees already, therefore, have the right to ask for a four-day week.

The key is that the right is to ask – not a right to demand!

What is the law?

From 6 April 2024, employees have been able to make a request from day one of their employment for a change to their contractual terms in the following ways:

• Employee makes a written request – for either temporary or permanent change.
• Employer has 2 months to consider, consult and notify of the outcome.
• Employer must deal with it “in a reasonable manner”.
• Employer may refuse for 1 of 8 permissible reasons;
• Employee can appeal.
• Employee can make 2 requests per 12-month period.

Limitations currently

The employer must deal with the request reasonably, but Tribunals do not go into the reasoning behind their decision to refuse, so it is difficult for an employee to complain that the business reason given was itself not reasonable.

The right is only for employees, so those with worker status cannot apply.

The formal process can only be undertaken twice a year.

What does Labour say?

Labour is saying they will make:

“flexible working the default from day one for all workers, except where it is not reasonably feasible”.

Increasing the scope of the existing law to cover all workers is in line with their general trend towards increasing rights generally to a wider class than the traditional “employee” status, so this seems likely.

The words “not reasonably feasible” perhaps mean they intend to give more teeth to the existing laws on flexible working request refusals, perhaps requiring the employer to justify the reasons given for a refusal. At present, we do not know what their intention is.

A strengthening of the flexible work regime not a right to a four-day week

A four-day week? Is that what they’re proposing? No. Not even close.

It is possible that they are going to strengthen existing opportunities for requests for flexibility, which will include asking for four-day weeks when appropriate.

How could this affect employers and what should you do?

It may be that employers will find that they are required to provide a genuine reason for a refusal and have that reason scrutinised more closely – thus, business cases and procedures may need to be assessed very carefully and decision-makers may need more training on the basics here.

The likelihood is that employers will still be able to refuse such requests, just as they can now, and the idea that employers will suddenly have to offer four-day weeks to their staff is simply not realistic.

The fact is market forces are the main driver here.

We hear from companies that they are finding that if they do not offer flexibility and/or hybrid/home working as an option – in industries where this is possible – they are losing out on applicants who are no longer willing to work in industries that are not willing to offer this.

If flexibility becomes more widespread, it is unlikely to be mainly due to any law changes, and far more likely to be due to pressure from workers themselves, especially younger workers, who now see this as important and are voting with their feet by leaving employers who do not agree.