Country trialling four-day working week with no salary cut

The best part: their staff are still going to get paid the same amount despite working 20 per cent less every week.

It might be time to jet off to Scotland once the opportunity arises because the British country is currently testing out a four-day work week.

Instead of working the standard 38 hours a week, office-based Scottish men and women may soon only have to do their job for 30 hours, meaning every week will have a three-day weekend.

And the best part? These workers are still going to get paid the same amount.

Their salary won’t change, despite the 20 per cent cut to their working hours.

Instead, the output, not the hours, is what will justify their yearly wage.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) proposed the radical work week in April this year, before the party was re-elected in May.

A new report, released last week, has made that proposition one step closer to reality, according to the BBC.

Scotland has announced it will be trialling a four-day work week.

Think-tank IPPR Scotland conducted a poll with its results released last week — which found that (unsurprisingly) 80 per cent of people wanted a four-day work week, citing wellbeing and productivity for the change.

The survey polled 2,203 people between ages 16 and 65. In another unsurprising move, and 88 per cent of respondents offered to be part of the pilot program.

Two-thirds of respondents said a shorter working week would boost productivity across the country.

Two Scottish companies — Glasgow-based UPAC Group and Edinburgh-based Orocco — have already been giving their workers three-day weekends without docking their pay.

Now the Scottish government wants to trial it to potentially make it happen country-wide.

Workers “won’t suffer any loss in compensation” under the scheme, according to Forbes.

Instead, the SNP will funnel £10 million (A$18.6 million) to experiment with the program.

A Scottish government spokesperson said the move had been prompted by the coronavirus pandemic, explaining: “The pandemic has served to intensify interest in and support for more flexible working practices, which could include a shift to a four-day working week.

“Reductions in the working week might help sustain more and better jobs, and enhance wellbeing.

“We are in the early stages of designing a £10 million pilot that will help companies explore the benefits and costs of moving to a four-day working week.

“The pilot will allow us to develop a better understanding of the implications of a broader shift to a shorter working week across the economy.”

Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party. Picture: Fraser Bremner-Pool/Getty Images

It’s not the first country to trial a radical change to the 9am-5pm, five-day week that has become the norm for office workers.

Iceland, Spain, Japan and New Zealand have all trialled something similar in the past.

Between 2015 and 2019, Iceland tested out a four-day work week across a range of workplaces including preschools, offices and hospitals.

All up, it included 2,500 workers, which is around 1 per cent of Iceland’s working population.

Now, 86 per cent of Iceland’s workforce have either moved to shorter hours for the same pay, or will gain the right to, the BBC reported.

Earlier this year, back in March, the Spanish government announced trials of a 32-hour work week over the next three years.

Like Scotland, Spain’s leaders planned to maintain workers’ salary, by paying for the unworked day out of their own coffers.

A country usually associated with employers that work too hard — Japan — is also looking to its European counterparts for inspiration.

The government is considering implementing a four-day work week — a welcome change considering Japan has a word in its language, karoshi, that literally means dying from overwork.

A New Zealand company tried the four-day work week in 2018 and reported a 20 per cent increase in productivity.

In May last year, just as working from home was becoming widespread amid the beginnings of the coronavirus pandemic, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern encouraged employers to consider the benefits of a four-day work week.