The right of full-time workers to request a four-day working week could be strengthened under government plans to increase flexible working.
Employees must still work full time to receive full pay but can request that the contracted working hours be reduced to a shorter work week, as first reported by the Daily Telegraph.
Since April, workers have had the right to request flexible working when they start work, but companies do not have to agree.
The government said it would not impose any changes on staff or businesses, but the Conservatives said businesses were “petrified” about the plans.
A spokesman for the Department for Business and Trade said: “Any changes to employment legislation will be consulted on, working with businesses.”
Education Minister Baroness Jacqui Smith told LBC that “flexible working is great for productivity”.
He said the four-day week being discussed would allow people to work 10 hours a day for four days instead of eight hours a day for five days.
“You’re still doing the same job, but maybe you’re doing it in a way that allows you, for example, to need less childcare, spend more time with your family, do other things, which encourages more people to go to work,” he added.
Employees already have the right to request flexible working
Employers must deal with requests in a “reasonable way” but can refuse “if they have a good business reason to do so”.
Charlie Thompson, partner at law firm Stewarts, said: “It’s not clear what the new legislation will do.”
“One possibility is that the government is making it more difficult for employers to refuse these requests, because it is now very easy to do so.”
Earlier this year, Morrisons abolished the four-day working week for head office staff after feedback.
In order to work a four-day week, staff have to work some Saturdays, which leads to complaints and dissatisfaction.
In July, Asda scrapped a trial of a four-day week after staff complained that the longer shifts were too demanding.
Ben Willmott, head of public policy at HR body the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, said flexible working arrangements such as compressed hours “can help people balance work and home life commitments, as well as support employers’ efforts to recruit and retain staff”.
“But flexible working must work for businesses and workers if it is to be sustainable.”
He added that the government would assess the impact of the changes introduced in April, which allow people to request flexible working from the first day of work, before making further changes.
Details are expected in the autumn when the law to create a new package of workers’ rights is expected to begin its journey through Parliament.
Labor has pledged to repeal some anti-union laws, limit the use of zero-hours contracts and expand flexible working arrangements.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer called the proposals “the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation”.
But the Conservative opposition said the approach would harm business and reduce productivity.
In 2022, some UK companies are running a six-month trial to trial a four-day working week, which would see workers get full pay for fewer hours.
Tyler Grange, an environmental consultant, took part in the trial and in 2023 to the BBC it stays with the work pattern.
Simon Ursell, its managing director, said the first month of the trial was “a bit white-knuckle”.
But the company says the extra day boosts staff happiness and even leads to more people applying to work there.
However, the experiment didn’t work for Mark Roderick’s engineering and industrial supply company, Allcap.
“As for 10 normal working days, we found that employees would have an extreme nine – when they got to the scheduled day, they were tired,” he said last year.
“Once we factor in holidays, sickness and caring responsibilities, we also struggle to find cover for employees on their days off,” said.
