100 UK Companies Turn to Four-day Workweek with no Pay Cut 

A major victory in the battle to fundamentally alter Britain’s perspective on work has been achieved with the signing of 100 UK companies to a permanent four-day workweek for all of their employees with no pay shortage.

The 100 enterprises employ 2,600 people, which represents a very small portion of the working population in the UK, but the 4 Day Week Campaign group is hoping they will be the forerunners of a significant change.

The five-day schedule, according to proponents of the four-day workweek, is a holdover from a previous economic era. 

The UK companies propelling the four-day workweek remain certain that this course of plan would encourage businesses to increase production, allowing them to produce the same amount of work in less time. 

The policy has also shown to be a successful method of luring and keeping staff for some early adopters.

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Some of the biggest UK companies signing up for the four-day working week 

Atom Bank and international marketing firm Awin, which each employ roughly 450 people in the UK, are the two biggest companies to sign up.

They have earned the four-day week campaign’s endorsement, proving that they haven’t forced workers into working longer days but have actually cut back on their hours.

The CEO of Awin, Adam Ross, stated that implementing the four-day week was, “one of the most transformative initiatives we’ve seen in the history of the company.

“Over the course of the last year and a half, we have not only seen a tremendous increase in employee wellness and wellbeing but concurrently, our customer service and relations, as well as talent relations and retention also have benefited.”

The UK movement is also organising the largest four-day workweek trial in the world alongside researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, Boston College, and thinktank Autonomy, including roughly 70 enterprises and 3,300 employees.

Reveal of the survey 

In a survey conducted in September, 88% of those businesses indicated the four-day workweek was  suited to their operations at that point in the experiment. 

Productivity has either kept the same or increased since the introduction, according to about 95% of the businesses surveyed.

According to the campaign’s director in the UK, Joe Ryle, the four- day work week is gaining ground as businesses prepare for a protracted recession.

“We want to see a four-day week with no loss of pay become the normal way of working in this country by the end of the decade so we are aiming to sign up many more companies over the next few years,” he said.

“With many businesses struggling to afford 10% inflation pay rises, we’re starting to see increasing evidence that a four-day week with no loss of pay is being offered as an alternative solution.”

The majority of businesses that have formally switched to a four-day workweek are in the services industry, such as IT, event, or marketing firms. The campaign did claim that certain employers in the industrial and construction industries had also registered.

According to some historians, the fight over the implementation of the four-day workweek had many similarities with the movement for a two-day weekend in the 19th century.

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