The four-day week has been hailed a ‘fantastic scheme’ and become the new way of working at Isle of Barra Distillers.
The gin distillery introduced the four-day working week for its team of six in January last year for an initial three-month period.
However, the increased productivity and all-round positive feeling from staff has seen it become the new normal.
It means staff work slightly longer hours everyday to complete the equivalent of five days and orders are no longer dispatched on Fridays – with no loss of pay.
Business performance manager Debbie MacMillan believes the scheme has been of massive benefit to both staff and distillery owners Michael and Katie Morrison.
She said: “We first introduced it at the beginning of January 2022 for the three months.
“But feedback has been great and it worked equally as well for the employers and employees.
“We had a chat at the end of the trial period and it was a short discussion because everyone was very happy to continue.
“The level of work being done within the hours we were working was sufficient to continue.”
Benefits to staff
Isle of Barra Distillers is Scotland’s most westerly whisky and gin producer and was founded in 2016.
It was one of a number of businesses who joined a pilot programme organised by 4 Day Week Global, in partnership with think tank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week UK Campaign and researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College.
A more recent trial was also carried out with 61 companies across a variety of sectors in the UK committing to reducing their working hours for all staff by 20%, for six months from June last year.
Research revealed a significant drop in the rates of stress and illness among the approximately 2,900 staff trying a shorter working week.
Around 39% of employees said they were less stressed compared with the start of the trial, and the number of sick days taken during the trial dropped by around two thirds.
People were much more likely to stay in their jobs, despite the trial taking place amid the “great resignation” period where workers have been quitting at record rates in search of greater flexibility, the report said.
There was a 57% drop in the number of staff leaving the participating companies compared with the same period the previous year.
‘Major breakthrough’
Ms MacMillan believes it’s something every company should be looking towards introducing.
She said: “There’s been a lot of talk on the island about it and when we’re at business events people ask how it’s going. It’s been a hot topic of discussion.
“It’s great you have your four consecutive days of working when you keep your head down and are very focused.
“Then you three days off you can really enjoy. It’s all round been a fantastic scheme.”
Joe Ryle, director of the 4 Day Week Campaign, said the trial is “major breakthrough moment” for the campaign towards a four-day working week.
“Across a wide variety of different sectors of the economy, these incredible results show that the four-day week with no loss of pay really works”, Mr Ryle said.
“Surely the time has now come to begin rolling it out across the country.”