May 4, 2022 7.00 am This story is over 21 months old

Lincoln employee feeling benefits as firm trials four-day working week

Not all businesses are convinced

A Lincoln employee said he is reaping the benefits of the company he works for trialling a four-day working week.

This summer over 60 companies will take part in a pilot scheme trialling the four-day working week for six months, starting in June 2022. Employees will be paid the same amount as if they were working their usual five days.

The pilot scheme – run by campaign group 4 Day Week Global, think tank Autonomy, and researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College – will measure whether employees can operate at 100% productivity for 80% of the time. Previous trials have found shorter working weeks boosted wellbeing.

Lincoln-based Sinister Fish Games said it is an “accredited Gold Standard” 4 day working week employer meaning “our staff are employed on a 32 hour, 4 day week basis with no loss of pay”.

Nick Welford, Project Manager at Sinister Fish Games in Lincoln, told BBC Look North: “I go into work, or go into my ‘office’ feeling positive ready to start the day. There’s never a day off that far away if I need one, so from how I feel about myself, how I feel about my mental health, my physical health, I find it just much better on those fronts.”

However, not everyone is convinced it will work as Suzanne Bracegirdle, Manager at Navenby Travel, said: “I really like the idea in principle. In practice, it’s very difficult because in a retail environment we’re still open six days a week, still got the same amount of hours to cover, so it would really mean recruiting more staff.”