UK flexible working plans will boost productivity, says Labour minister

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Government plans to boost the ability of UK employees to compress a five-day working week into four longer days could boost productivity, a minister has said.

Baroness Jacqui Smith, an education minister, said Labour’s proposals to bolster flexible working rights, including a four-day “compressed” week, could usher more people into the workforce.

“We think that flexible working is actually good for productivity,” she told LBC on Friday, giving the example of staff moving from working eight hours a day from Monday to Friday, to 10 hours for four days a week.

“You’re still doing the same amount of work, but perhaps you’re doing it in a way that enables you, for example, to need less childcare, to spend more time with your family, to do other things, that encourages more people into the workplace,” she said.

Labour promised ahead of the election to build on legislation that already allows staff to ask for flexible working arrangements and compels bosses to consider any such request, without forcing them to approve it.

Under the party’s workers’ rights package finalised in May, Labour set out proposals for flexible working patterns to become the default, with the onus shifted on to employers to justify refusal in cases where it is not “reasonably feasible”.

The party said it wanted to help workers benefit from “opportunities for flexitime contracts and hours that better accommodate school terms where they are not currently available, by making flexible working the default from day one for all workers, except where it is not reasonably feasible”.

It would be a change to the existing right to request flexible working arrangements, which became a right from day one earlier this year — scrapping a previous 26-week qualifying period that made it difficult for parents of young children, for example, to move jobs.

Flexible working can encompass many different arrangements — including compressed hours, job shares and term-time only working. At present, these are relatively little used despite high demand from employees, with part-time hours, flexible start and finish times, and the ability to select or swap shifts being more common.

Campaigners say even this stronger default right will leave employers too easily able to refuse flexible requests on grounds of business needs.

But business groups are nervous that the government might narrow the reasons they are able to give for refusing a request, as well as shifting the burden of proof on to the employer.

Ben Willmott, head of policy at the CIPD organisation for HR professionals, said the government would need to tread a “fine line” to ensure “that flexible working works for both organisations and employers”.

But he also acknowledged that employers were often “a bit risk averse” in allowing forms of flexibility such as job shares that could help them to retain and recruit senior staff to their benefit.

He also said it had become important to widen access to flexible working hours for those in front line roles who could not benefit from the new prevalence of hybrid working.

Despite complaints from some employers that flexible working hits productivity, economists say there is no clear evidence that it has a big positive or negative effect in aggregate — although the impact will clearly vary a lot between businesses.

Policymakers view the expansion of flexible work as important to boost workforce participation, however — among older workers and disabled people, as well as parents of young children.

The Conservatives claimed Labour’s approach would raise the cost of doing business in the UK.

On Friday former cabinet minister Dame Priti Patel, who is vying to become the next Tory leader, accused Labour of “imposing more burdens and bureaucracy and red tape, regulation, on to businesses” and warned it would “have devastating impacts for those businesses” and the wider economy.

Officials insisted the government, which has committed to set out further details of its approach within 100 days of entering office, would not impose a four-day working week on employers or employees.

They also cited a 2023 Chartered Institute for Professional Development (CIPD) survey that showed 38 per cent of organisations found more home or hybrid working had increased their productivity or efficiency, while just 13 per cent said it had worsened those outcomes.

Some campaigners are urging the government to go further. Joe Ryle, director of the 4 Day Week Campaign which wants workers to lose a working day but retain full pay, said: “Compressing the same amount of hours into four days rather than five can be an important first step on the road to a true four-day week but reducing overall working hours is crucial.”

A department for business and trade spokesperson said any changes to employment legislation will be consulted on, adding: “Our Make Work Pay plan is designed around increasing productivity and creating the right conditions for businesses to support sustained economic growth.”