# Story 1: 200 UK Companies Commit to Permanent 4-Day Work Week

- **Episode:** [168](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/168.md) (2025-02-04)
- **Type:** news-roundup
- **Tags:** 4-day-work-week, uk, workplace-policy
- **Time:** 2:03–7:16 (start 123s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/168?t=123](https://truthliesandwork.com/168?t=123)

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[2:03] Leanne Elliott: 200 companies in the UK have committed to a 4-day work week. Yay!
[2:07] Al Elliott: That's good news
[2:09] Leanne Elliott: It really is. According to a report I saw in The Guardian, 200 companies across the UK have now committed to a permanent 4-day working week for their employees with no loss of pay. That's over 5,000 workers who'll be clocking in fewer hours while keeping their full salary. This latest milestone comes as part of the campaign led by the 4 Day Week Foundation, which, which argues that the traditional 5-day, 9-to-5 model is outdated, essentially a relic of a different economic era. Hear, hear. Joe Ryle, the campaign's director, put it quite bluntly: the 5-day week was invented 100 years ago and is no longer fit for purpose. And with 50% more free time, the argument goes, people can lead happier, more fulfilling lives without a drop in productivity. So which industries are leading the charge? Well, apparently marketing, PR, and advertising. Their firms are on, on top in terms of embracing the 40-day work week. Uh, 40-day work week? What am I on about? 4-day work week. Uh, charities, NGOs, social care follow closely behind, um, and then some tech firms and business consultancies as well. Notably, it just seemed to be the London-based companies that have had the most enthusiastic adopters, making it nearly a third of all businesses embracing this change. But while some workers are celebrating the shift, the 4-day week is far from the norm, and it's reigniting debates around workplace flexibility. Many employees are still pushing for basic work-from-home rights, let alone reduced working week. Um, Al, thoughts?
[3:42] Al Elliott: Well, it's a long time coming, and I'm, I'm pleased. Um, I think that we've, we've always, we've always said that the crux of the whole 4-day workweek thing is, can you deliver the same thing in a shorter period of time. Not can you do less work, not can you potentially save money by going to 4 days but only paying for 4 days. It's all about can you deliver the same amount of or quality of work. And there's lots of companies that prove they can. If you go back to episode, I wanna say 58, I'll check and put it in the show notes, that we talked to 3 people who were experts in the 4-day work week. Ferry, who runs a digital PR consultancy, extremely successful, very funny on LinkedIn. Definitely go and— we'll put a link in the show notes. Definitely go and find him. Ferry Cazzoni, I think it is. Originally from Romania and now just jumps on LinkedIn and, and does these sort of like green screens himself into, uh, uh, into, into movie scenes. Uh, very, very funny, but also extremely successful business. And they've been working 4-day work, uh, work weeks for a long, long time. We also had Joe O'Connor. Um, sorry, Joe, I think we might have just mentioned your competitor there. But Joe's another guy who was, who did a huge study into the 4-day work week. Definitely worth having a look at. And another guy, Banks Benitez. Um, And he was one of the people who was working with Joe's pilot. Really interesting stuff there. So it's a great— if you're interested in this kind of thing, we'll put a link in the show notes. I think it's about 58, 60 is the episode. Definitely worth listening to
[5:00] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, it does seem to be like 2022, 2023, there's lots of talk around the 4-day work week. And last year we didn't hear as much about it. Um, I think, you know what really struck me about that article? And it's so obvious, but I never really thought about it before. Going to like a 3-day weekend, you get 50% more spare time
[5:16] Al Elliott: Oh yeah
[5:16] Leanne Elliott: But it's such a massive increase, isn't it? And it's kind of that— I think the short-sightedness maybe from some business owners is that, well, if we're going to lose a day a week, does that mean we're going to lose a day a week in terms of our revenue? But I actually, I don't, I don't think that maths maths in that way. And actually, if you looked at then how it's going to impact positively your retention rate in terms of staff, the quality of applicants you're going to get to your business by offering a 4-day work week as standard, I think it's going to pay for itself very, very quickly. And let's not forget about what the kids want. Um, so this article also said that younger workers are making their expectations clear. And a study by Spark Market Research found that 78% of 18 to 34-year-olds in the UK believe the 4-day work week will be standard within the next 5 years. I think that's wishful thinking, but I, I hope you're right. Um, so yeah, nearly two-thirds as well are rejecting the idea of returning to the office full-time. So I think, yeah, there's gonna be a time where we're gonna push back, and I think the next 4 to 5 years is going to be where organizations are going to push back with the RTO mandates and blah blah blah blah blah. But my feeling is I'd like to think the same, you know, that by 2030, 4-day work week is more, more common. I think it'd do wonders for those early adopters now in terms of your, your talent acquisition
[6:33] Al Elliott: Yes, exactly. I think that's it, that you may not be able to compete on salary, but if you can offer the same salary but for 4 days rather than 5 days, then suddenly your talent— I think you call it a talent stream. No, what do you call it when it's like a pipeline? Pipeline. Your talent pipeline. People are attracted to you. I mean, the other consideration is that The 8-hour working day was invented, I believe, by Henry Ford, because he reckoned that 8 hours work, 8 hours leisure, 8 hours sleep, and that's the way you should be setting up your 24-hour day. Well, we don't all adhere to that. Some people go the other way, but a lot of people now, I think, are going, look, if I can get my work done in sort of like 6 hours, great. So lots of archaic thinking, and I'm really pleased that some people are actually, actually working on this. And this is great. Good for you. Well done
[7:14] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, well done. What have you seen this week, Al?