The UK Government Announces plans for Flexible Working – The End of Productivity or The Beginning of a New Era of Worker Rights?

Published by Bethany Seed at October 4, 2024

Introduction

After Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government announced plans to introduce legislation that could transform the entire economy, by compelling employers to offer employees flexible working options (including a four-day “compressed” week), the nation has found itself divided on the implications of these reforms.

A Closer Look into Labour’s Proposal

Although the country generally remains in the dark on the specific details of the upcoming changes, the party’s Employment Rights Bill from May 2024 suggests that the onus will be shifted onto employers to justify refusal where flexible working patterns are deemed to be unreasonable. This could mean that employees could completely control their working hours as long as they don’t contradict with their company’s aims.

The practical implementation of these ideas may be more complex in practice though. It doesn’t take much imagination to find several industries where flexible working hours could lead to drastic consequences. For example, the NHS is already suffering from a staff shortage that could exceed 570,000 by 2036. This indicates that the room for flexibility for understaffed departments would be unnoticeably narrow. Otherwise, NHS employees changing their working hours could cause major delays and threaten lives.

Outside the realm of public services, companies could surely evade the legislation’s intended effects if they impose work targets onto employees. Also, although working from home or working four-days a week may be achievable, employers may expect their teams to put the same number of hours in when they are active. This could lead to overly intense four-day workweeks.

The workers’ rights package also intended to allow staff to “switch off” outside of work hours and restrict zero-hour contracts. Even though there will presumably be months of consultation and debate over how these ideas can be introduced, both of these policies should be beneficial for employees across the UK. Zero-hour contracts have been perceived as problematic for a long time, especially as they can allow employers to take advantage of their employees. These contracts can permit companies to impose inconsistent working hours on workers and to effectively terminate anyone’s employment with little reasoning or justification.

A Global Perspective – How Will these Future Changes Align with Other Countries?

The UK isn’t the only country that is looking to trial a four-day work week as Spain and Australia have enacted pilot runs to assess how effective reform will be. Although it is difficult to trace who pioneered flexible working hours of this nature, the Scandinavian countries are recognised to have adopted these measures after experiments proved successful.

It would appear that for Labour to follow in the footsteps of countries that are renowned for the highest quality of living is therefore encouraging. However, it could equally be argued that Scandinavian countries have cultures that in many ways starkly contrast the UK’s, meaning that introducing flexible working hours shouldn’t therefore be viewed immediately as a ‘home-run’ of an idea. Furthermore, it is worth noting that Scandinavian countries host very different populations and specialise in different industries to the UK. Even if flexible working was beneficial for Sweden, who host a population of 10 million and generally specialise in forestry, manufacturing, and IT, the approach may not suit the UK’s growing population of almost 70 million and where 80% of its economic activity can be attributed to services, including: finance, retail, and entertainment.

The UK’s major industries would be less complementary with flexible working than Sweden’s, as services (e.g. retail and finance) are often only as profitable as they are accessible to consumers, whereas manufactured goods (e.g. wood and cars) can often meet cyclical demands and therefore do not require employees to adhere to strict working hours.

Nevertheless, those with a cultural thermometer would generally suggest that the UK is overdue for some beneficial changes. Beyond political tensions, riots, Brexit, and a host of other events, it has been found that more than a third of UK employees are unhappy and presumably would consider moving to other countries unless major reform is implemented.

Conclusion

Overall, what exact flexible working measures the Government enact and how they will affect the country is ambiguous but should become more clear in the coming months (at the cost of businesses who would want to plan ahead to accommodate for any major changes).

The restriction of zero-hour contracts and work commitments outside of work hours will certainly be positive developments for employees across the country. It is much harder to say whether a four-day work week would be as suitable for the UK, especially when considering how industries and companies might evade this measure. Furthermore, the four-day work week has only been implemented in Scandinavian countries that are arguably structured very differently to the the UK.

Nevertheless, any pilot trials that may be introduced in the coming weeks, in a similar fashion to Spain and Australia, will hopefully tell us more about whether Labour could be set to lead the country into a new age of personalised employment or a cloud of uncertainty and unintended consequences.