One casualty of the pandemic has been the traditional five-day, 40-hour working week spent in the office.

Despite the problems of home-schooling children and having limited dedicated space as an office, many people realised that they could be still be productive, working from home, and that, actually, they rather liked it.

In order to tempt them back to work, many businesses have been offering staff the chance to work more flexibly, and work more of their hours from home. But some in the UK have gone even further, moving to a four-day week with no loss of pay in order to attract and retain top talent.

The 4 Day Working Week UK Campaign says: ’The standard 9 to 5, five-day working week is outdated and no longer fit for purpose.

’It is making us stressed, over-worked and burnt out.’

Elaine Codona, human resources director of a strategic HR and coaching company in the island agrees, saying: ’The old Monday to Friday, 9 to 5pm came out of the industrial revolution and is extremely outdated and in dire need of change.

’To win the war on talent, companies need to start being more flexible with their offers.

’Working five days a week leaves little time to shut off from work or to concentrate on personal activities.’

The 4 day working Week UK campaign also points to numerous studies showing that working fewer hours tends to boost productivity. People are more focussed and work harder when working hours are shorter.

Elaine says: ’The "Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm" regime drives a culture of presenteeism, where people are watching the clock and killing time, not necessarily working smartly, or at all, as the focus is on "doing their hours" and staying until the proverbial bell rings, or the clock hits 5pm so that they can leave.

’Having a focussed four-day week, with clear performance objectives and measures in place, would certainly be more cost-effective, but only if the objectives and measures are set correctly and aligned to the business objectives so that performance can be measured.

’Changes to management style are also needed to fully engage employees - by treating them with respect and as adults rather than the old-fashioned parental approach.’

Charlotte Cain, recently appointed head of people and culture at technology company PDMS, is more sceptical about the benefits.

She says: ’I think flexibility nowadays is expected from employees, heightened more recently by how the pandemic has an impact on our lives and our mindset towards working.

’A four-day week structure has the intention of creating more free time for the employee and with the aim to gain more productivity within those four days which of course, sounds brilliant.

’However, often in practice, what you see is a four-day working week, but five days’ worth of work crammed into that time. Which is, arguably, counter intuitive to wellbeing, productivity, and the whole premise of reducing to four days in the first place.

’In terms of the struggle for talent, I personally think there is a lot more to attracting talent than just the number of hours they’re contracted to in a week: it’s about the quality of that experience, the meaningfulness of their work, how the business treats them as an individual. Yes, it may help to spark the interest of a potential employee, but I’m not certain it’s the main clinching part of their decision to join or stay with you.’

And, whilst a four-day week might be adopted by larger corporates, is it something that small businesses with currently squeezed margins would simply find too difficult to implement?

Andy Corrie, area manager for Manx Co-op and the Chamber of Commerce’s sector lead for retail, says: ’In larger corporates and public sector employers, particularly in administrative roles and in traditionally 9-5 Monday-Friday employers, achieving productivity is a bigger issue than covering hours and this could be achieved via a four day week.

’Salaried staff could be paid on more of a performance related basis, more based on productivity than simply hours worked.

’Seventy-five per cent of businesses in the Isle of Man employ five or fewer people. This is across multiple sectors and many of those businesses often need to cover hours of service in order to be productive, especially In retail, hospitality and lifestyle.

’For example, a dog groomer who could groom 10 dogs per day would go from grooming 50 dogs per week over five days to only 40 if implementing a four-day week.

’For many service led businesses, even larger ones, a reduction in the number of days at work would actually decrease productivity and would mean a requirement to give those hours to others, or recruit more staff to cover them. For example, a bar that needed 40 staff working five days each would need an extra 10 staff to provide the same hours cover and same work if they reduced all staff to four days.

’In short there is definitely merit in all employers considering more flexible types of employment and improved terms and conditions for their workforce in order to provide a better work life balance and improve employee attendance, performance, engagement and wellbeing. While a four- day working week is one area potentially worthy of consideration, it is by no means the only answer and is certainly not a panacea.’

Elaine Cordona sums it up, saying: ’For businesses to be able to move to a four-day week, or more importantly to offer flexibility in the hours that people work, habits need to change.

’To continue, or even start, to drive productivity with fewer resources, organisations need to find an effective way to define success and to manage performance and measure outputs. Only when these success criteria are clearly defined will a move to four-day working be effective.’