How To Request A 4-Day Week in 2024 

This yr, the federal government’s Employment Relations (Versatile Working) Invoice handed by means of parliament, presenting a golden alternative for workers to advocate for a four-day work week in 2024.

Beneath the brand new laws, employees can now make two requests for versatile working hours, instances, or location in a 12-month interval. Managers may also have to offer correct reasoning for an worker earlier than rejecting a petition for versatile work – together with for a four-day week.

The rising recognition of the four-day work week has been fueled by the pandemic, which has accelerated the shift in direction of versatile working.

In a Startups’ survey of 530 UK staff, carried out final Might, 78% of respondents had been in favour of the profit resulting from its optimistic influence on worker wellbeing, productiveness, and job satisfaction.

As a rising physique of proof helps the advantages of the four-day week, the perk is poised to turn out to be a mainstream actuality within the UK. We clarify how staff can reap the benefits of the legislation and make working a four-day week your New 12 months’s decision.

Methods to request a four-day work week

Analysis from Aspire has beforehand uncovered that seven in ten staff deliberate to ask their employer to embrace a four-day week this yr.

However initiating a versatile working request just isn’t like submitting an informal ask for a time off to binge-watch Netflix. 4-day working weeks are usually not compressed hours. As an alternative of the normal 9-5, staff work 28 hours per week throughout 4 days to get pleasure from a three-day weekend. Crucially, this comes with no reduce to pay.

Naturally, employers could also be suspicious {that a} transfer to a four-day week would possibly result in a drop in output. That’s why the submission calls for a excessive stage of preparation.

Staff must rigorously take into account their goals, collect intelligence on the corporate’s insurance policies, and craft a persuasive proposal for bosses, earlier than they’ll current a critical case for a swap.

Now’s one of the best time to ask for a four-day week. This yr, extra companies have sought to undertake shorter working hours and experiment with four-day workweek trials, presenting a lot stronger proof for doing so.

Listed here are 5 steps to submitting a four-day workweek request forward of the brand new Versatile Working Invoice:

Step 1. Test your eligibility

All staff (together with those that are coming back from maternity go away, paternity go away, or classed as disabled) are legally entitled to make a versatile working software in the event that they fulfil the entire following situations:*

• Have labored for the employer for at the least 26 weeks
• Are legally classed as an worker
• Haven’t made another versatile working entry within the final 12 months

There’s some hypothesis that the Versatile Working Invoice could introduce a day-one proper to request, abolishing the necessity for an employment interval of 26 weeks or extra. Nonetheless, this has but to be confirmed.

*Relying on the office’s coverage, some firms will allow staff who don’t meet the above necessities to submit a versatile request. Staff ought to seek the advice of their worker handbook to substantiate this.

Step 2. Put it in writing

Subsequent, the employees member should submit a proper attraction in writing, clearly stating that they’re making a statutory versatile working request. The attraction ought to embrace the next particulars:

• Worker title, handle, date the request is shipped, and get in touch with particulars
• Assertion that the worker is making a statutory versatile working request
• Particulars of the specified versatile working association (employees can ask for a four-day week throughout particular weeks, for instance throughout faculty time period time, or for a set period of time, similar to six months)
• Rationalization of how the change will profit the worker and the corporate
• Rationalization of how the change will influence the worker and the corporate
• Any paperwork associated to the submission (e.g., childcare preparations)

As proven above, the onus is at present on the worker to elucidate what impact, if any, the change utilized for would have on the employer and the way that impact is likely to be handled.

As soon as the Versatile Working Invoice comes into power, employees will probably be rid of this requirement. Nonetheless, it is nonetheless price together with this reasoning in your request to strengthen your case for flexibility.

Step 3. Meet with the employer

As soon as the applying has been acquired, the employer ought to arrange a gathering to speak concerning the particulars concerned earlier than they arrive to a ultimate determination. This dialogue just isn’t meant to intimidate however to open a dialogue about your Friday freedom aspirations.

This supplies an excellent alternative for the worker to focus on the advantages of the change, similar to improved work-life stability, plus any challenges it’d pose. If a full-blown four-day week is not possible, the supervisor would possibly suggest a compressed workweek, a hybrid of shorter days and longer hours.

Step 4. Watch for a call

Subsequent, it’s a ready recreation. As soon as your employer has reviewed your request, they have to let their determination inside a most of three months.

That is one more reason why the Versatile Working Invoice is so necessary. As soon as launched, it would considerably shorten the ready interval for hopeful staff to 2 months, eliminating weeks of nail-biting anxiousness.

Step 5. Reply accordingly

If the response is sure..

Rejoice! The worker can bid farewell to their earlier, monotonous five-day grind and embrace the four-day work week for that sought-after stability of labor and play.

If the employer approves a request, it will normally change the phrases of the employee’s employment contract. Companies ought to put the approval in writing, together with:

• The agreed change, together with when the brand new working sample will begin
• How lengthy the change will final, if for a set time frame
• An agreed date that the change in coverage will probably be reviewed, if required
• How/ if it would influence working hours, pay, job location, and vacation entitlement

If the response is not any..

Your employer can flip down your attraction for versatile working if there’s a sound enterprise cause for doing so. By legislation, your employer can flip down your versatile working request if:

• It would price an excessive amount of, or require one other worker to be recruited
• There will probably be a unfavorable impact on productiveness or high quality of labor
• The enterprise gained’t be capable to meet buyer demand
• Upcoming adjustments to the enterprise could scupper plans for a four-day week 

Staff can submit an attraction within the type of a written letter or electronic mail to ask for the choice to be checked out once more. This should even be responded to inside three months of the request being made.

As Coldplay put it: once you attempt your greatest, and also you don’t succeed, put in one other petition for a four-day week. In the meanwhile, staff could make a brand new software if it has been greater than 12 months since your final submission.

Nonetheless, the helpful factor concerning the incoming Versatile Working Invoice is that it’s going to allow staff to make two submissions per yr, which means staff who’ve been turned down can merely attempt once more six months later.

Closing ideas

As HR managers anticipate the arrival of subsequent yr’s Versatile Working Invoice, now’s an opportune time for workers to grab the chance to foyer for a four-day work week.

By utilising the newfound flexibility granted by the invoice, and presenting compelling proof for its advantages, staff can revolutionise the best way we work in 2024 to usher in an period of worker wellbeing and productiveness. And all in time for that 5pm end on a Thursday.