Staff at Tottenham brewery to take part in four-day working week trial

A Tottenham-based brewery is one of the 70 companies in the UK taking part in a four-day working week trial, which launched on Monday.

The pilot is running for six months and is being organised by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with the think tank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week Campaign, and researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College.

During the trial, employees will get 100% pay for 80% of the hours they would usually work, with the aim of being more productive.

Sam Smith, co-founder of Pressure Drop Brewery said it felt "like a good time" for the firm to be trying different working practices.

"The pandemic’s made us think a great deal about work and how people organise their lives," he told the BBC.

"We’re doing this to improve the lives of our staff and be part of a progressive change in the world that will improve people’s mental health and wellbeing."

Smith recognises though the challenges that lie ahead for his team of nine, who will have to produce and package the same amount of beer as they do now, but in four days instead of five.

“We understand that as a manufacturing company, who makes and ships a physical product, and provides customer service alongside that, there will be challenges for us that are not faced in the same way by many other companies which enjoy greater flexibility around work location and timing,” he said.

“We hope that our progress as a brewery will be a source of keen interest for the experts and researchers supporting the trial, as well as to others in the beer industry.”

The experiment, involving some 3,000 UK workers, is part of a worldwide initiative and is running alongside similar, smaller trials in Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

"The UK trial is historic", said Juliet Schor, the lead researcher on the Global four-day week project, and an economist and sociologist at Boston College.

"The basis of this movement is that there’s activity going on in many workplaces, particularly white collar workplaces, that’s low-productivity and that you can cut without harming the business.

“We’ll be analysing how employees respond to having an extra day off, in terms of stress and burnout, job and life satisfaction, health, sleep, energy use, travel and many other aspects of life,” she said.

“The four-day week is generally considered to be a triple-dividend policy – helping employees, companies, and the climate. Our research efforts will be digging into all of this.”

However, Julian Jessop, an independent economist and fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said while he was in favour of the trial he was "sceptical" it would show good results across the entire economy.

"You’d have to become 25% more productive per day," he said.

"There are some services where a four-day working week is not a realistic option.

“Doctors are already struggling to provide enough GP appointments - how can they see 25% more patients in a day?

“And it’s difficult to see how a bar person can pull 25% more pints in a day too."