Asda is abandoning plans to introduce a four-day working week after complaints from exhausted staff exposed a crucial misstep in the successful implementation of reduced working patterns.
The supermarket chain launched a trial to have employees work their 44-hour week over four days instead of five for the same pay. That translated into 11-hour shift patterns for labor-intensive work.
The idea of completing the same weekly hours in a shorter space of time inevitably had a negative impact on Asda workers. Staff described the shifts as “physically taxing”, while the early starts and late closings put those who rely on public transport at risk.
Parents working at Asda also experienced difficulties coordinating childcare and picking up and dropping off children at school during the 11-hour shifts.
The group has decided not to continue with the shortened four-day working week, but is now experimenting with a flexible working week of 39 hours, spread over five days.
“We will continue to trial different flexible working patterns to assess how they can benefit our colleagues and our business,” an Asda spokesperson said. Fortune.
Asda is not the only company to have faced health concerns among staff after it sought to introduce shorter working patterns.
Insurance company Domestic & General introduced a similar shortened working week, but also received complaints from staff who were becoming mentally exhausted.
“Half the team loved it, the other half hated it. It makes the day last longer and a little bit more intense,” Crummack said. The Telegraph“For them it was psychologically easier to divide the work among five,”
Last year Crummack said Bloomberg that companies that implement a four-day workweek tend to lose their ‘flexibility’ and inevitably force employees to do extra work on the fifth day.
How to Successfully Implement a 4-Day Workweek
The announcements from Asda and D&G came just days before South Cambridgeshire Council hailed the overwhelming success of its four-day working week trial.
The council’s 450 employees conducted the largest ever trial in the public sector of a four-day working week.
Benefits included a 39% reduction in staff turnover, saving the council £371,500 ($476,000) through lower recruitment costs, The guard reported.
At the same time, the council indicated that 15% more important planning applications were processed, while household planning applications were completed a week and a half earlier, indicating a huge increase in productivity.
“We know we cannot compete on pay alone and we have had to find bold new ways to address our recruitment and retention challenges,” said John Williams, South Cambridgeshire’s chief councillor for resources. The guard.
In recent years, more and more experiments with a four-day workweek have been carried out, but the results are mixed. Success is not guaranteed.
The most successful trials typically see employees reduce their hours for the same pay, as at South Cambridgeshire Council. Although retention rates are increasing, several studies have found
In a four-day working week trial, more than 60 companies and almost 3,000 employees in the UK experimented with the 100:80:100 model, where employees worked 80% of their time, received 100% of their salary and delivered 100% productivity.
One year after the pilot ended, Autonomy found that 89% of companies were still implementing a four-day workweek, while employee burnout rates decreased significantly and employers saw a decrease in turnover.
However, the latest results from Asda and D&G show that the benefits of an extra day off are negated if employers try to get their employees to work the same number of hours in fewer days.
While British companies and government organisations are experimenting with increasing their employees’ free time, Greece is taking the opposite approach to boost productivity.
The country has relaxed labor laws in some sectors, allowing companies to hire workers who work 48 hours a week.