Cheese and the four-day week

Between unexpectedly parting company with my school and joining the Merchant Navy I spent some months working in a cheese distribution centre.  I am reminded of that experience by the current interest in the four-day week.

I worked with two ladies of indeterminate age called Flo and Madge.  Our job was to assemble pallets of cheese in accordance with customer orders, the cheese being picked as required from supplier pallets.

I was young and keen and it soon became apparent to me that we could complete each day's orders in about half a day.  My efforts to prove this did not go down well with Flo and Madge, who made it clear to me that this was not something they would tolerate.  Neither did it seem to be welcomed by the foreman, a placid man in a brown coat who had an artificial foot as a souvenir of the war.

Even at that age I had sense enough to know that being disliked by your colleagues and boss makes for an unpleasant working environment and I quickly fell into line.

I'm pretty sure that the reasons for this poor productivity, or the consequences for the firm concerned or, by extension, the country, did not at the time cross my mind.  Reflecting on it now it seems clear that:

1. The employees concerned allowed the work to expand to fill the time available in order to protect their jobs
2. There was no benefit to them in working harder
3. They saw the rate at which they worked, established by custom and practice, as "fair" - an unwritten contract between them and the firm
4. The supervisor (and presumably the managers above him) accepted this state of affairs in order to preserve the peace and maintain relationahips.

The four-day week discussion really addresses point 2 and, implicitly, point 3.  It does not improve productivity in terms of output over cost, although it may have some benefit in terms of asset utilisation and (transiently) recruitment and retention.  It requires management to say:

• By moving to a four-day week we both accept that you are producing at least 25% less than you could.
• We are rewarding this poor performance by giving you a 25% pay rise.
• We are doing this because a) it's much too difficult to improve actual productivity and b) we are in a dog-fight for staff

What will happen to actual output from the four days over time?  I think there is zero chance it will actually increase beyone what used to be produced in five days and quite a high chance that it will gradually decline to (a wild guess) about where it was before ie about the same output per day and about 80% of the previous overall output.  This is after all seen as the "fair" amount of effort.

To be clear, I can see no inherent logic other than the status quo for any particular work pattern, be it four-day, five day, six day or two-day week and the decision should be left to the organisation concerned.  Clearly a zero day week would have economic consequences and a seven-day week (although not unknown now) would have social consequences.  My concern is that this change is gaining in popularity because as business owners, managers, voters, tax-payers and politicians we are too craven to face up to the real causes of piss-poor productivity in the UK.

BTW, if you would like to learn more about productivity improvement in your business then you should register for one of these events.