Employees could get greater powers to work their contracted hours over fewer days.

Full-time workers’ rights to ask for a four-day working week could be strengthened under government plans to increase flexible working.

Employees would still have to work their full hours to receive their full pay but could request to compress their contracted hours into a shorter working week, as first reported by the Daily Telegraph.

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.

The government says it will not impose changes on staff or businesses, but the Conservatives say businesses are “petrified” about the plans.

Education Minister Baroness Jacqui Smith told LBC that “flexible working is actually good for productivity”.

  • @RedactedEnglish
    4•16 days ago

    Why would you expect it to affect productivity when you were working the same number of hours?

    It’s just slightly increased flexibility under the guise of a 4 day week.

    • @tlou3pleaseEnglish
      2•16 days ago

      I guess the logic is, and I don’t agree, that people will burn out through the day and spend the last couple hours phoning it in. That’s not my experience of what actually happens but I think that’s what some people think.

      • @eyeonEnglish
        1•16 days ago

        there’s also the impact of having less consistency in hours. i.e if I work Friday and don’t work Monday but am blocked waiting for someone whondoesnt work friday…it’s waiting until Tuesday.

        • @tlou3pleaseEnglish
          2•16 days ago

          That’s true but I found that nothing was really so urgent that it particularly mattered. If it did, there should be a 24 hour contingency anyway.