The government has denied it has any plan to impose any plan to impose a four-day week on business as implied by some reporting in national newspapers and broadcasters.
The Telegraph reported today that businesses were “petrified” about “plans” for employees to work a four-day week where possible.
Minister of state for skills Jacqui Smith told LBC Radio this morning: “We think that flexible working is actually good for productivity. So the four-day week that I know is on the front of quite a lot of newspapers today, what we’re actually talking about there is the type of flexible working that enables you to use compressed hours.
Asked about jobs such as teachers and engineers, who would not be able to do a four-day week using compressed hours, Smith said: “Well, no, and nor can lots of other people, but that doesn’t mean that those people that can do it shouldn’t have the ability to do it.”
Since April, workers have already had the right to ask for flexible working as soon as they start a job but firms do not have to agree.
A spokesperson at the Department for Business and Trade said: “Any changes to employment legislation will be consulted on, working in partnership with business.”
Kevin Hollinrake, the Tory shadow business secretary, told the Telegraph: “Despite warning after warning from industry, [Labour deputy leader] Angela Rayner is pressing ahead with her French-style union laws that will make doing business more expensive in the UK.
“Labour must listen to businesses who are petrified about day one employment rights and bringing in the four-day week through the back door. It will be businesses and consumers who pay and growth that suffers if they don’t listen.”
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Smith said those who negotiated a four-day week would most likely work for 10 hours a day for four days instead of working eight hours a day for five days.
“You’re still doing the same amount of work, but perhaps you’re doing it in a way that enables you, for example, to need less childcare, to spend more time with your family, to do other things, that encourages more people into the workplace,” she added.
Ben Willmott, head of public policy at HR body the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, said flexible working arrangements such as compressed hours “can help people balance their work and home life commitments, while also supporting employer efforts to recruit and retain staff.
“However flexible working has to work for both the business and workers if it’s to be sustainable.”
Employment law specialist and blogger Darren Newman pointed out that the right to request flexible working was included in the Employment Act of 2002 but has been expanded since. Since then the right has been expanded. He wrote that in 2019 the Conservative Party manifesto promised to change the law, saying: “We will encourage flexible working and consult on making it the default unless employers have good reasons not to.”
This became the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 “which tweaked the procedure for making a request,” said Newman. He added the reforms did not do anything to change the grounds on which the employer could refuse a request or to introduce a requirement for any refusal to be reasonable.
Labour’s proposals – with an Employment Rights Bill expected this autumn – will most likely make “flexible working the default from day one for all workers, except where it is not reasonably feasible.”
Newman said this would probably simply raise the threshold of reasonableness – making it slightly harder for an employer to refuse a request. But the language was vague enough to allow wriggle room on the employer’s side.
However, Nicholas Le Riche, a partner in the employment law team at BDB Pitmans, said some employers may be anxious over what requests are feasible and which aren’t. He said: “I wouldn’t expect employers to be ‘petrified’ by these proposals given that working compressed hours is not unusual and businesses are now well accustomed to dealing with flexible working requests.
“However, what employers will want is clarity on their ability to refuse these types of requests and how tough it will be to show that compressed working isn’t ‘feasible’. If employers are still able to rely on the current eight reasons to show that a request isn’t reasonably feasible then this could provide some reassurance to businesses.”
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