The Font climbing wall in Borough, London. Daytimes have become ‘unexpectedly busy, especially on Fridays’, says the facility’s manager © Ben Stevens/FT
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Armed with climbing shoes, chalk and ankle-length trousers, Tom arrived at The Font climbing gym in central London on a Friday ready to embrace his unofficial four-day week.
Thanks to a relaxed work-from-home policy, the 38-year-old, who is in advertising, was spending the afternoon on the wall rather than answering emails.
Most Friday mornings, he told the FT, were dedicated to petcare: “My wife and I call it the dog day. The dog gets priority.”
Tom, who declined to give his full name, expects most of his co-workers quietly take Fridays off, although he admits he is in a fortunate position.
“ I’m in a leadership role so it’s probably easier for me to do that than it is for a junior,” he said.
While both the Labour government and its Conservative predecessor have criticised public bodies moving to a four-day week, a small but growing number of businesses have adopted it as policy in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, many employees also appear to be working heavily reduced Friday hours without approval from their superiors.
Workplaces that officially adopt the policy typically cite improvements in productivity and employee wellbeing. The Scottish government reported increases in both following a trial of the four-day week in two departments last year.
Last August the Office for National Statistics released figures suggesting more than 100,000 workers in the UK had moved to a four-day week since 2019. The 4 Day Week Foundation advocacy group estimates more than 500 employers have adopted four-day week policies.
David Cann (right) smiles with five Target Publishing staff at a racecourse, celebrating 25 years of trading
David Cann, managing director of Target Publishing, right, with staff celebrating a work anniversary © Target Publishing
No data exists on staff working unofficial four-day weeks because of the furtive nature of the working pattern. However, in the leisure and retail sectors there are early signs of a more casual attitude to working on Fridays.
Niklas Ek, head of data at fitness chain PureGym, said its locations in commuter towns are “significantly busier” at the end of the week, with a 25 per cent increase on Friday lunchtimes in outer London compared to before the pandemic.
When you exclude the centre of the capital, Friday consumer footfall in Greater London has risen on average 2.5 per cent year on year since 2023, driven in part by people running errands, according to MRI Software, which tracks consumer behaviour.
Back at The Font climbing wall, in Borough, centre manager Ian Pollington said daytimes had become “unexpectedly busy, especially on Fridays. We’ve seen a big rise in people choosing to climb [and] train.”
Employers have been increasingly concerned with Friday absenteeism, said Kate Palmer, chief operating officer of the human resource outsourcer Peninsula. Management teams often struggle to determine the appropriate response to the trend, particularly in fields where productivity was difficult to measure, she added.
“They’ve got a sales rep out on the golf course because he’s just received his bonus and he’s not that bothered about the next one,” she said. “It’s an absolute headache.”
While government officials have opposed the four-day week on the basis that it does not provide value for money for taxpayers, proponents suggest the added rest can improve working the rest of the week.
“The reality is the foot isn’t to the floor all the time,” said David Cann, managing director at Target Publishing, which adopted a permanent four-day week during the pandemic. “If you decrease the number of working hours you get more loyal employees and the tempo of work increases.”
Advocates also cite the fact that the five-day working week was once considered abnormal. This year will mark the 100th anniversary of the Ford Motor Company’s decision to stop work on Saturdays in 1926, usually seen as the root of the two-day weekend.
Tom, the Friday rock climber, admitted he was unsure whether his firm would be able to shift to an official four-day week and remain competitive.
“In a service industry like advertising and marketing there’s always going to be a level of responsiveness that puts you in a position to get more business,” he said. “How much of that requires the total workforce? It’s hard to say.”
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I’m for this. No-one does much on Fridays any more (office empty, no calls, no emails - they can’t all be “really focussed on writing that ‘report’”). If I was in charge, I’d tell people that can do a proper in-person shift Mon - Thurs or do ‘agile’ Mon - Fri. Mooning around at home all week and then skiving off on Fridays seems to be double-dipping to me. In reality a Friday skive is nothing new. In the past we put out jackets on our chairs and went to the pub at lunchtime for the rest of the day….
It's not how long you work, but how effectively you work that matters.
Feel the quality, not the length - itherwise we'd all be dressed in fustian.
We have to consider those who can't work - how do they live. Prenting the problem as single-dimensional is totally regressive.
Can Tom please enter the chat
(Edited)
Honestly, Tom sounds pretty lazy and entitled. That’s no way to behave for someone in a “leadership role”. If he worked for me, I would be putting in the odd meeting or unannounced Teams call with a QQ of a Friday… lucky you don’t work in financial services Tom.
Totally agree
Aren’t Saturdays there for doing personal admin stuff?
'They' are who my 90 y-o mum always used to refer to when trying to establish some made up fact she believed to be true
these folk don't really have jobs at all.

just a matter of time to see them redundant.
Four day week takes us back to the 1970s.

This is more likely explained by people working long hours earlier in the week, or on weekends, adjusting times to suit customers or get projects done, while Friday becomes useful to deal with chores, as long as there is nothing in the calendar.
Generally it is what they deliver not an obsession with hours worked or dogmatic must be in the office. Forcing people to work in unproductive environments is pointless and removes their flexibility and ability to deliver.
And we wonder why UK productivity isn’t what it was.

Suggest that for the UK to grow employers start insisting on a five day working week - in the office.
Agreed. Not the ones who are at home picking up the kids or walking the dog.
Would be more interested in reading about "The employees secretly working a seven-day week"
I am under pressure to offer one of my staff a Day WFH because others in the office already do this. That maybe so but it doesn’t help me if I want to get certain things done when they are not in the office.
If the entitled youth of today want to WFH they should expect to be paid a half day’s pay!
Since retiring at 70, I’ve been struck by how busy my local gym is during working hours on Fridays. This anecdotal evidence aligns with official data: UK hours worked remain below pre-pandemic levels and productivity growth has been weak for years. If flexible working increasingly translates into fewer effective working hours rather than higher efficiency, it is difficult to see how this benefits an already underperforming UK economy.
They know that if people take the day they want off, the work they produce is the same as if they stayed at work. That's been established.

Not happening round here. Such a London City paper, this.
A comfortable trend for well paid Londoners perhaps. But not for others struggling to get by.
There is a case to be made (although i think the evidence is still weak) that companies that choose to hve a 4 day week are more productive- thats their choice. That is quite different from someone whose contract (and pay) is based on a 5 day week, but routinely "works from home" on Friday; that is breach of contract. And how intensely irritating it is when trying to speak to someone allegedly in a (often public sector) office and you can hear the dishwasher in the background.
when AI comes into force, they can enjoy a zero day work week
I work five days a week. Let me tell you they are not missing anything!
Nothing will ever match the bloke I saw sitting on a teams call while in the swimming pool and occasionally checking in on the propped up iPad between lengths.
What about women who take off Fridays or Mondays claiming childcare issues when partner works from home anyway. Dare the FT goon squad not to take this down in case the truth upsets !
Remember the vitriol Corbyn received when he even suggested this?
I’d certainly try it myself and for my staff if our customer base wasn’t mon-fri 8-4 and expectant of a response within an hour or two.
A four day week should be an employment right, depending on the role the salary should be no more that 20-30% less salary than the full time equivalent to account for the reduced productivity of a shorter working week with the same management and training overhead.
Wish my leadership would take Fridays off. I could actually get real work done instead of getting tied down with endless internal reporting and distracting conversations. Maybe I should work from home….
If Tom worked at Omnicom he might be on borrowed time.
They have moved towards full attendance in the office. So harder to slope off. Secondly with the second and third rounds of cuts coming, Tom's antics would put him straight on the chopping block
This is what happens when employees are allowed to "work from home". When everyone had to show up Mon-Fri in the office, it was obvious if someone was missing.
These slackers should just be fired. Wrong attitude and work ethic. That “leadership role” slacker is just a fraudulent manager, not a leader.
(Edited)
Interesting to read many of the comments about slackers, productivity, fraud, etc.

I wonder if the huge earnings gap between management grades and the rest of the workforce has anything to do with it? I personally believe that a large part of the “UK productivity problem” - also reflected in attitudes to Friday working - is that most of the workforce are not valued highly enough, and are well aware of it.

Profit sharing and bonus pools should be extended to include
more employees. Of course, human nature - which includes greed - means it is never going to happen.

So the behaviours of one half of society will drive the less committed behaviours of the other half. In the long run we are all losing.

(I should add that I am retired so am nothing more than an interested observer: my “long run” will be shorter than many!)
if you went to a 4 day week in the public sector, then Thursday would become a 'dead day' just like Friday is now.
(Edited)
Dear Tom: I am old and enjoy tut-tutting at FT article subjects that suggest people don't suffer enough at work. I cannot thank you enough for providing me and my fellow commentators with this nugget of gold, and I hope you get fired because I love it when you 50-year-old kids get a thrashing for not being as tough as I once was. I have to take a break now because my arthritis is acting up from pressing the Recommend button so many times for my fellow curmudgeonly pensioner commenters.
In 1989, I signed up to a three-day week at a salary of 60% of a tightly-priced FTE.

Of the twelve employment contracts I signed over my working life, this is the one I celebrate most sincerely. The free time was gold to me, although colleagues were not shy about attempting contact off-duty. One soon learnt whose voicemails to ignore.

It lasted seven years. The financial strain was easily worth it, although lack of dependents was a necessary precondition.

I could never have contemplated a return to full-time work, but academia and freelance consultancy provided me with similar freedom thereafter.

In my view it’s nothing to do with if these people are productive enough in four days etc etc. Tom is paid for five days and is working four. If he is found out, he is in breach of his contract if its written right and gives grounds for instant dismissal.
Yes, and sounds like his wife might be doing the same.
Ah the UK productivity puzzle explained
Obviously, his fifth leisurely day = someone sitting and doing nothing while being paid.
Presence doesn’t mean performance and time cannot be equated with productivity. I can count widgets, but since the dawn of the knowledge economy these relationships became hazy. Getting unproductive people back into the office won’t drive the bottom line. Stroll around an office and count the number of people staring at their phones and not their PC screens. A four day week is a symptom of a ‘four day economy’. If the economy was going gang busters we wouldn’t care how much time was being spent with the dog or on the climbing wall.
Four day weeks are a great idea. We lived in a place where everyone did a 4 day week - even the schools adopted a 9 day fortnight. it worked for everyone.
4 days! That much
Personally I tried of 3 of those in the coffee shop
All fun and games until gravity kicks in and climbing protection fails.

Anyway, management is different than leadership
And productivity not increasing, couldn't be any connection could there?
Article about people skiving off on a Friday - who knew
When I worked in the City, trying to get hold of my German colleagues after 11 AM London time on a Friday was usually impossible.
Turkeys voting for Christmas if their jobs can be done by AI..
Quite right. Some people (the rentier class) would still like us working down t’pit 6 days a week for 12 hours a day.
Hahaha
How is the EU going to be competitive with the US and China if the EU politicians and public keep thinking of fewer work days? In China in the high Tech. sector the CEO of their leading 5G company asked their employees to sleep at work to catch up with competition.
I find this foot-to-the-floor comment curious:

“The reality is the foot isn’t to the floor all the time,” said David Cann, managing director at Target Publishing, which adopted a permanent four-day week during the pandemic. “If you decrease the number of working hours you get more loyal employees and the tempo of work increases.”

I have never worked foot-to-the-floor all the time. I have found quieter spells useful for reflection, discussion, innovation and regeneration.
I wonder if delivering the same output in four days instead of five results in what Cann says isn't reality - the foot being flat to the floor all the time.
I'm so glad comments are open on this unlike that really controversial hot potato of an article ( or was it hot pasta) featuring Riz Ahmed under the regular FT weekend Lunch section discussing his creative film/music career and on-going projects. Bravo FT.
Many years ago I was running a business where we were going to introduce a nine day fortnight and the immediate retort from the ops guys was that the sales team would being up in arms about the extra days they would have to work.
Tom is in leadership role apparently! More likely he's in a management role; he doesn't sound like any kind of a leader.
'Im in a leadership role so its easier for me to do that than a junior' has to be my favourite quote this week. Completely missing the point of leadership but all too common.
Shirking from home
“British productivity remains stagnant: a mystery that cannot be solved.”
“Work sets your free” familiar with that!? Possible, as many found out it did not. People should not be labelled as lazy or having not responsibility. Quality not quantity makes a good work productive and valuable. Human productivity has increased enormously over the last decades and we still do not seem to be satisfied. Today, AI helps with tasks which a person would traditionally take hours, days or weeks. The tendency is that gains in productivity will increase further and unless demand also increases there will be free time to spare and why not spare on things which makes us happy, healthier and clever. Besides, the article should highlight that most people have a working contract which sets how many hours one should work per week. Therefore, if one works long hours other days of the week why not make a Friday shorter given overtime pay is generally not on the table. Finally, enjoy life and take care of yourself and those who you love, do not sacrifice these things for work.
(Edited)
It will be an interesting annual review meeting when all those employees pushing for a four day week realise that is what they are going to be paid for…..

I actually think that this article is wrong. My sense is that the general consensus has shifted back to five days and more; epithets such as TW&Ts making a mark, certainly in London.
This is fraud. We just don't like to call it that.
"... many employees also appear to be working heavily reduced Friday hours without approval from their superiors."

"Employers have been increasingly concerned with Friday absenteeism..."

I'm happy for people working variable hours, job-and-finish or whatever when that is the employment deal. When it isn't, it's not my problem but it is fraud.
Quite right too, no one calls fraud on the employer when you do all those extra hours unpaid!
That's 'cos it ain't!
Interesting subject, though. Maybe Sarah O'Connor could do a piece about why some people work many unpaid hours and whether habits are changing.
Used to but won’t now. Simply don’t believe it’s worth it in terms of whatever illusory benefits follow - if I was on a sales gig and more work meant more money it would be a different story. But I’m not.
(Edited)
Currently in Waitrose doing my weekly shop.

The difference is that I work from home and am usually working at 8am and can be still working to 8pm.
"We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us".

A marvellous quote from the USSR.
Glad to know that I’m not the only one who quietly sign off earlier than my colleagues in their 40s….
What would employment drop to if we sacked all the slackers? I think this country runs on the backs of 25% of the workforce.

Bring back the work house I say…
My company.
And it’s lunch time.
Started at 7.
Do 60-70 hours weeks.
Aren’t you at work?
If its your company, then do it, sack them... What are you whining on FT for?
Hey Grok, pretend you’re an entrepreneur and spread discord among workers
Unless you're doing deals on tight deadlines all the time and you to do 60 to 70 hour weeks it rather suggests you have what I would politely call a work life balance problem. Maybe recruit a decent manager - that's what friends I know who started their own businesses did. Worked very well for them and they got to spend more time their families.
What a depressing story. A liar and weak manager gets to justify his lack of professionalism…
(Edited)
People patronizing on work ethics while reading and commenting on the FT on a working day
So the story of unofficial 4 day weeks is based on one man, Tom?

Increased footfall at gyms over a Friday lunchtime doesn't indicate much. Employees are free to use lunch breaks however they wish.
“ I’m in a leadership role so it’s probably easier for me to do that than it is for a junior,” he said.
I wonder if his staff think he's a leader.
Indeed. Everyone claims to be a leader these days.
I’m trying to reconcile this with my experience at an IB when the staffer marched around at 7pm on a Friday night and tapped you on the shoulder whilst staring intently at what was on your screen and asked “are you busy”. If you could not explain in depth what you were doing and what you had to finish by Monday you got to work all weekend on the next deal.
We need an article on the economics of bouldering tbh
My workplace offers hybrid working, with a minimum of two days per week in the office. Most people seem happy with the arrangement and there are no obvious shirkers.
From experience with previous employers, I see more problems with parents "working from home" but basically spending the days looking after their children. Especially younger ones or those who are allowed to skip parts of the school week.
Really not fair on the rest of us.
Sounds like a great opportunity for employers to reduce headcount by 20% without missing a beat.
Friday is actually my most productive day by far, largely because email traffic grinds to a halt (so much so that I schedule most distraction-free or "deep work" for Fridays*). Now I know why!

* Although I did make time to write this comment...
Our Parish Clerk has been fake working four days a week, on full pay, for years. A trailblazer or conwoman depending on how one sees it.
Still for those who have to show up day after day for a pittance, a real injustice.
Beware: major grumping below 😀 It's about time that the four-day week became the norm. Keynes would be horrified that it hasn't
Contrast this to yesterday's article about working 996 in Silicon Valley AI companies.

Perhaps everyone in the UK with "get up and" has "got up and went" to Silicon Valley?
You work and achieve these outcomes and I give you money. Don’t work and I don’t give you money.

Not that hard to understand. Whether the outcomes are achieved in 4 or 5 days might not be important - depends on the requirements of the job.
And conversely I see many people doing not much in senior management and being paid a tonne.
Actually, there is quite a lot of academic research that shows that as managers become more senior they spend time increasingly on promoting themselves rather than promoting the interests of the company. So you are exactly right.
Well that’s a solid business case for the AI’s to replace human workers.
Increase Tom’s contractual hours Monday-Thursday asap. Smug git.
So many people working fake jobs...
My office is like a morgue. But the local coffee shops I passed on my way in were full and cycling through the park I had to dodge a sea of joggers. Gen Z's work day = 9am: check your emails; then go for a run; check them again at 10.30; then go for a coffee. Etc. etc. Meanwhile the few in the office do the work. Soon I'll retire without having trained the next generation. Had they bothered to grace the office with their presence, I'd have happily involved them. To track them down each time a client calls is unrealistic. If I were in charge, I would do something about this. The only time I changed jobs in 35 years was to up my workload, to learn more and to progress. How times have changed.
What’s wrong with the good old Friday when lunch started at 11:30 and ended 3ish, quick nap on the desk and home at 4:30? What is the world coming to?
Nah, just Lloyds or non-life!
Well, that photo of David Cann was a bit distracting
(Edited)
And people wonder why we have a productivity issue.

We have a productivity issue partly (not entirely) because we work less hard than we use to. Anyone who worked in the UK in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s knows this.

We need to stop pretending that working fewer hours, having more 'mental health breaks', more holidays and reducing work stress levels has no negative impact on productivity. There is an argument the psychological benefits of working less hard outweighs the lost productivity.

So let's try to find the optimum balance between maximising productivity and working less hard. But let's not do that silly left wing thing where we pretend working less hard improves productivity. It can happen, but its the exception and not the rule.

We work less hard because of technology, but there has been no productivity improvement since the introduction of advanced technology.

That tell us technology has hidden how poor our productivity has become. If we had continued to work as hard as we did before technology, imagine the increase in productivity we would of witnessed!

I specifically said that you can work less hard and improve productivity. I divert from this mainstream HR / Management view only insofar as I believe this is the exception, not the rule. Or at least there is roughly an equal chance of reducing as improving productivity by working less hard.

To suggest that working less hard always improves productivity is rather ridiculous. Yet this concept has almost become unchallenged and universal in modern management. Indeed, challenging this concept can lead to great disapproval if not disciplinary action. This is what I am arguing against.

I do not argue in favour of making people work beyond levels which improve long term productivity or cause 'burn out' or undue stress.

And please note working less hard has nothing to do with 'treating people with respect or empowering them'. You are conflating different issues.
(Edited)
The average UK worker already produces 20% less than their American counterpart. Not sure working less days is going to help growth. Shame on this person!

And I suspect the people responsible for the study that 4 days is more productive than 5 days are the same people that told us that open workspaces were good for employees.
Who is looking after the dog the rest of the week?
Dogs will be replaced by generative AIs, as will wall climbing marketing leaders.
That 20% less efficient number has been around for about 20 years (maybe 25) when the FT charted UK v Europe v US employee efficiency. I remember Europe was nearly as efficient as the US because they worked fewer hours. Waiting until the last minute, they spent less time on projects than British workers, while accomplishing 100% of the result.
The good folks at EustonWall have never grassed me up to the FT. Might have to climb elsewhere!
I struggle to understand how anybody in a " leadership" role can just take Fridays of to help the dog.

Leadership implies amplifying other peoples eforts through goal setting and subsequent supervision.

Doing that only 4 days a week isn't leadership and I can't imagine his "juniors" being very happy or productive
Clickbait article obviously. Anecdotal at best. Mainly to encourage other Friday shirkers to spend some time commenting. The wider point I guess is that post pandemic, there is increased flexibility in working patterns. Or acceptance of this at least. Job markets are still good as well, very few employers are seeking excuses to sack people, very few have candidates lining up to join them. If this guy's team and company are doing well, and this pattern leads him to be happy and productive, so be it. It will just be a shock to everyone's system, if we would ever return to the days of jobs being scarce. That you could easily be traded in for someone who doesn't take a dog cuddling day Friday, at lower pay, longer hours.
This is perhaps an explanation for the productivity problem in the UK since the GFC. De facto 4 day week for 5 days pay. And combined with strong wage growth ahead of inflation. AI may well support a general move to a 4 day week, but that investment likely requires pay to adjust too.
Slacking on a Friday is not news - it has been happening for multiple generations . In the city, Friday is known in some quarters as POETS day , aka. "P@@S off early, tomorrow is Saturday". The only difference is that instead of going to the pub at lunchtime onwards, people are going to climbing centres or walking their Cavapoos, as they are at home.
We WFH Fridays, unless super busy and then staff come in. A noticeable drop off in Teams and Whatsapp messaging overall, particularly Friday afternoons. The deal s also that if you want to go and play golf with a broker / long lunch etc, do it on a Friday rather than during the week. As far as I am concerned, if the work gets done, then I dont have a problem. If there are mistakes, and things are missed, then the WFH on a Friday will come under scrutiny. Lastly, I think if a five day in office policy was mandated we would struggle with staff retention.
Stop highlighting this Tom. You’re going to spoil it for all of us. Everyone does this already down low. I’m playing halo right now on my sofa with work phone beside me. But please stop making it public you’re going to spoil it for all of us.
Far Cry 6 here
Elite.
Since 1 Jan this year we've got all our staff in the office in person Mon-Thursday and Fridays WFH in the morning, and all knock off at 1pm. It's working a treat
Tax free too, as even Labour can't tax holiday.
Soon Tom ‘declined to give his last name’ will have plenty of time for the climbing wall. If AI doesn’t get him, eventually one of his poor juniors (actually working on Fridays) but looking for a leg up will make it known casually on a casual Friday. If the business doesn’t need him on a Friday, maybe they don’t need him any other day of the week.
I think Tom, 38, married with a dog who works in a leadership role in advertising could be in a spot of bother here. Probably not what his firm had in mind when they said he should climb the corporate ladder.
I'd be monitoring emails and Teams statuses. What a bunch of wasters.
I enjoy the irony of the very next article on the UK page being “Is the UK on the verge of a productivity revival”
Here for the comments section
Tom, who declined to give his full name
LOL
nice advertising picture by Target Publishing
Nothing wrong with working round a hobby during a quiet period of the work day.

This goes hand in hand with people not going out and getting hammered on a Friday night anymore.

Shouldn't be slanted as a negative.
The irony of all these people in bot jobs being paid to write irate comments about people working from home
I can feel the anxiety my boss has reading this article. :)

And yes Boss, I'm working today.
sshhh
This is why we need work in office 5 days per week. Productivity loss is incredible from WFH
Shame on Tom and the others mentioned in this article...

...they're letting the cat out the bag for the rest of us!
My favourite, true, leadership story:

Director, known for arriving late, leaving early and taking long lunches, calls out to CEO's PA: "I'm going out for a haircut about 11."

To which CEO's PA responds: "Why not, Fred [not his real name], after all it grows in the company's time."
Tom the entitled TW&T
Imagine taking the day off and giving your dog a bone instead of the missus.
Clickbait ...shouldn't be on the front page ... some disgruntled journo with a hangover this morning.
One could also highlight the huge amount of time blue collar workers spend in traffic jams, on breaks etc.

I was recently walking the dog and amused to see 4 OpenReach vans ("making the Net work", or not in my village's case), with one man in each, engines running at around 11.00. Newspapers, sandwiches and tea, no one actually working. Plenty of pollution, Mr Milliband. When they later came to my house to update me on progress, they said they would be going home at 3. So I reckon that 7/8 hour day delivered about 4 hours work, for 4 men in 4 vans - and we still have a patchy fibre supply !
The advertising industry has been doing major rounds of layoffs. Sounds like they could lpse another 20% without noticing.
It’s just Parkinson’s law in action. Most white collar jobs don’t actually provide 5 days worth of work, so if you strip away the padding (unnecessary meetings, L&D etc) you can easily get the same amount of work done in 4 days. So why not let people spend the 5th doing things they enjoy?
If they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work
This is the FT comments, not LinkedIn
Does boot polish taste that good?
It'll be Chinese boot polish you'll soon be tasting and you will deserve it.
One of the key reasons productivity is so poor in the UK
My wife and I call it the dog day. The dog gets priority.
I’m near enough the same age and don’t have kids, it’s going to be wild when large cohort of my generation get old and have no younger relatives.
Yes it’s somewhat of an assumption from this statement he doesn’t have kids or sounds close to having them.
There will be robots
The employees secretly working a four day week (and less):

Literally everyone in the UK.
I would agree mostly, except I think our police officers increasingly wfh so they can review bad tweets.
The hardest job there is.
Sexist
Disgusting. This is why we are poor
How disappointed to read about Tom , who is cheating his employers and he would espouse integrity to his Junior colleagues
These are the most dangerous leaders who would throw the team under the Bus
shame on such leaders
I had to contact the media team of a Big 4 firm a couple Fridays back (before Christmas) and nobody in their EU or UK press team picked up the phone at 15:00 on a Friday.
I hope that for any UK plcs that 4 day weeks have resulted in a pro rata cut in wages or a reduction in headcount, otherwise shareholders are being ripped off.
For all those that say they do the same job/ same productivity in 4 days just as well as 5 then they have been overpaid for years.
Remember a basic productivity calculation is output/input cost. We bemoan our low productivity but here's one issue staring us in the face.
How the other half live! Nice employment if you can get it.
For the many in the comments who feel tax rates are harming UK productivity - tax rates as % of GDP:

US ~25%
UK ~34%
Germany ~38%
France ~44%

Is there a correlation between tax and hard work? Given the UK has NHS free at point of use, are we getting a good deal? Which do you consider the sweet spot between socialist and capitalist state?
agree - I'm one of those people - high earners are notoriously slippery - thus the argument for wealth taxes on property, inheritance etc, that would disincentivise hoarding and rent seeking rather than productive work - but political suicide even to discuss such a thing - much better vote winner to promise lower taxes and higher spending - sounds insane when written down, but that really is what the public goes for
Relevant to note that:
1. Sales people live and die by hitting targets. Seems to me it's largely up to them how they spend their time. Non office sales staff have always been fairly flexible with hours, especially given the amount of their own personal time they may have to give up.
2. Ultimately you employ somebody to do a job, not fill the hours between 9 and 5.
And yet we in the public sector are derided for our lack of productivity...?
Not a secret anymore. Thanks FT.
A mixed approach is best. Taking it a bit easy on Fridays but ensuring you are responsive on Bloomberg/Teams etc.
No mention of the civil servants who have been doing this for years
AI will make it easier for people to 'work lightly'.

Can send bots / agents to attend calls.

LLMs can churn out a few automated emails every few hours.
The council lot just all go on long term sickness
I have to say, this is disheartening to read. My company does not allow its staff to WFH, and after reading this, I can understand why.

In my opinion, those who are allowed to WFH, should be thankful for the flexibility and not use it as a jolly up.
(Edited)
If we're looking for reasons why our economy is in the doldrums, look no further.
When our Asian colleagues are working 5,6 or 7 days a week and we work 4, then the results are self evident
Yes, yes, I know all about work-life balance, but it's a cruel world out there. We will be eaten alive with such an approach to declining work ethic.
But perhaps we're right after all., I too would probably opt for a life based on my particular pleasure principles.
I worked in team of 18 people in a global corporate and nearly everyone worked ‘compressed’ hours and got away with it. Earning full time pay, they either didn’t ‘do’ Mondays or Wednesdays or Fridays, whatever suited them! It was challenging to work effectively with all that going on. A bunch of chancers yes but I also know I was the fool.
"My wife and I call it the dogging day. The dogging gets priority.”

Important to have hobbies.
You would probably find, if he skived off 5 days a week, no one would notice the difference.
Friday is for lower priority work. It's pointless to start anything major because it will be interrupted by the weekend, so it makes more sense to just use it to catch up on less important things that can be finished quickly. Hence Friday afternoon is basically a deadzone.
Central London is dead on Fridays.
private sector wastage
"I’m in a leadership role so it’s probably easier for me (to skive off)..."

What awesome 'leadership'.

The UK's ongoing productivity gap there in a nutshell.
Haven't Friday afternoons been a write off for many workers anyway? They are just going to gyms instead of boozers.
When you’re paying 60% tax or more between £100k and £125k then why not.
As someone who regularly skips off to my local climbing gym when work is quiet, to see such a report get such prominence is worrying purely from a “we’ve got a good thing going” perspective.
I see a lot of outrage but can't help wonder whether commentators on here should be working?
Well with a comment like this there’s absolutely no doubt that you’re a retiree
If you were doing 6 days a week in the 80s and 90s you were the fool. 5 days a week was standard for parents when I was a kid, and Im no spring chicken.
Hmm have you seen starting salaries? And maybe done a little comparison to house prices?

And your 6 long days a week are probably part of why you could retire, possibly early.
This article is very counterproductive to all of us fighting hard to keep the accurate view that working from home is just as productive for the company and highly important for us.
The irony of the next suggested article : Is the UK on the cusp of a productivity revival?
(Edited)
Are we going to pretend that high tax rates have nothing to do with this? And the government is serious about improving productivity?
An individual being able to do this is all well and good but for those who cannot it can create resentment and hinder their work. My workplace has mixture of WFH days. Many are in office 1 day a week. Some for their role have to be in 5 days and others like myself are in 3 days. If I need something doing on a Friday, sometimes happens on Mondays, I cannot on most occassions get a response from those who are WFH. My work is on hold until I get a response.
Something is wrong if we are looking for ways to work less at a time when we should be working more. Change jobs if you hate what you do but don't defraud your employer.
Businesses have got to work when their customers need them to work — businesses are not there to pay their employees to have an easy life.

And those people slacking this Friday should ask themselves whether their competitors are taking a similar approach, whether innovators in China are only innovating 4 days a week and whether AI says it’s had enough on Friday or gets on with churning out more (and better) copy in that one day than the marketing exec managed in the 4 days he was “working”

Britain needs to get a grip.
The boss goes rock climbing while forcing the minions to be present in the office. Classic.

Why are they like this? Why can’t we all just have Friday off? People are so selfish.
The world of advertising is well known for being over paid for the work done.

The delivery and key components are very subjective, creative, so cannot easily be measured in terms of lead time and activity.

It simply needs to have the client ensure they get value for money and push back on the inflation this sort of attitude is driving.

Pet day, really!
I think it's ok as long as the employee is putting their hours in, getting the job done and remain available to take calls or join meetings. I don't work a four day week, but Friday tends to be more relaxed because circumstances make it convenient for me to work a 10-12 hour day on Thursday.
Work 4 days and get paid for 4 days. Your choice
Secretly?
I'm in a client facing role and Friday afternoons are definitely quieter but I'm always available and I use the time to catch up on admin type stuff, expenses etc.

Part of the problem in Edinburgh is the schools finish at 1205 on a Friday!
Sack them. Sack ‘em all.
I don't see a problem with working shorter days on Friday provided that the employee is still getting all their work done and that other people don't have to pick up their slack. Back in the early 2000s I remember agreeing with my boss that I could leave early some Fridays in order to go away for the weekend, because it balanced out the days when I worked late for a deadline.

However, routinely taking the whole day off while pretending to work fulltime seems dishonest to me. A friend once insisted on working 4 days per week in a role that was intended to be fulltime, took the 20% pay cut and was happy with the outcome (more time off, lower marginal tax rate etc). Similarly, I know a lawyer who doesn't work Friday afternoons in order to spend more time with her kids, but she takes the hit of not being paid for that time. Or, if someone is confident they really are performing, tell the boss you're working 4 days per week and want to keep your pay and see what they say!
Has the comments visibility changed format?
FT shout out to all the people reading this instead of doing work this Friday
And we still ask why UK, Germany, France, US are loosing their competitive advantages against hard working emerging markets and internal labor costs are exploding?
The irony in this article is hilarious actually. Ok, so these people who are taking time off on a Friday--what are they doing? Going to a hairdresser, going to restaurants, running errands to the shops, playing golf, attending doctor's appointments . . . All places that, you know, have staff. Wonder how Tom would feel if he rocked up to his climbing wall and they said, sorry, you can't come in, we've decided not to work this afternoon!

As someone who works in hospitality, where weekends are the busiest time, all this talk about four-day weeks is pretty tone deaf. Maybe for office workers a four-day week makes sense. But I think the FT should make extremely clear that this applies only to a very limited number of workers--most people don't have the luxury of just not working certain days!
I work shift patterns, so yes, I do understand how they work. Of course I don't mean that a staff member at the climbing gym is personally working seven day a week!

My point is that, in these jobs, if you're contracted to five days a week, you HAVE to work those five days, because these services are expected to be operational. There isn't a certain day that you can say, eh, it's not important, I'll just walk out for a few hours and too bad if customers still come in.

Also, I wouldn't be caught dead in a McDonald's, thank you very much.
I think the point is that you would be contracted to 4 days rather than 5...

The separate question would be whether or not that is remotely realistic
I've worked a four-day contract before, so it's totally realistic. But you get paid for only four days, not five. I've no problem with people working less than five days. The point is, you get paid less than colleagues who are doing five. And everybody knows that you're working fewer hours and getting paid proportionately.
I wasn't saying I thought office workers should have to work five-day weeks. I think it's inevitable that more businesses will go to a four-day week officially, and yes, that is a potential benefit to other businesses--although I would need to see more statistics about whether this actually increases overall trade or simply spreads it out.

What I was saying was that it was ironic how the article talked about how Friday is the unofficial not-working-day, when the people cited were going to other businesses where staff were, evidently, working.
I absolutely do not think people should toil because of "reasons." But if your job is just wasting time on PowerPoint, than your job is probably ripe for axing and if so, where are you going to get that money to spend in the social sphere?

The problem with the four-day week is that it currently relies on the assumption that everybody will get paid the same level for fewer days of work and thus not impact spending power. As someone who has previously worked a four-day contract in hospitality and been paid proportionally less as a result, I don't really see how to convince businesses to require fewer hours of work whilst still paying out the same amount. Gosh, if I had asked that, I would have been laughed out of the building.

I think it's far more likely that we'll get sacking of staff and bosses demanding higher productivity from the remaining workers. And unemployment doesn't help drive customer numbers in any sector.
Yes, that is very common. But their staff are usually on hourly contracts so they're only getting paid for the time that they work. This article wasn't talking about official four-day weeks; it was specifically talking about staff at companies with a five-day week who are neverthelesss slacking off on Fridays.

And I should hope small business owners can close their doors and go on holdiay for a week or two! They should get their holiday entitlement like anyone else. The difference is: if their business is closed, well, it's not exactly paid leave, is it?
Hardly a new practice, how quickly everyone has forgotten the drinks trolley that used to be rolled out on Friday afternoons in the office, following on straight after the boozy lunch...
Are people paid to work or paid for their time?
We got it down to three days for a while in the 1970s!
This is overplayed by inept middle managers who are trying to make excuses for their lack of confidence and unwillingness to engage with employees.

Yes, some people are taking advantage, but either 1) they are obviously doing their job another days so nobody cares, or 2) they are lazy and have always been lazy and we're probably not accomplishing much in the office pre-Covid.

Also, we forget that pre Covid people went to the gym, to doctors, to run errands. They just left the office in the middle of the day to do it. It was also highly inefficient because they were having to run half way across town for a doctors appointment, while now they can do it on Friday at their local clinic.

Managers who think employees are slacking without justification should talk to those employees about it. Otherwise there is no evidence of broad declines in overall employee productivity, so they need to stop pretending there is a problem.
Huge difference between an official policy and defrauding your employer.
Perfectly logical in a country where work doesn't pay for most people as as soon as you reach a £100k, the State takes 60% of your money and takes away your child support.
There is absolutely no point in striving for a promotion. You may as well take it easy.
If you earn £100k-£125k a year (after pension contributions etc.) you are paying a 60% marginal tax rate. So on Fridays Rachel Reeves is getting more of your salary than you do.
👍
Economist Pedro Gomes’ recent book makes a compelling case for the 4-day working week:

“FRIDAY IS THE NEW SATURDAY: HOW A FOUR-DAY WORKING WEEK WILL SAVE THE ECONOMY” https://www.bbk.ac.uk/news/friday-is-the-new-saturday-how-a-four-day-working-week-will-save-the-economy
You know this is true because office work is so quiet on Fridays.

I quite often book hair appointments on a Friday afternoon and take my laptop. I answer any emails and can do some admin. I did this last week in fact and there was three of us in the hair chair, all professional women, doing the same.
It would be interesting to do some ethnographic research around this in a wider context to really understand what is going on. Schoolchildren are most likely to be absent on a Friday since the pandemic. I'd love to know what is going on at home in families
white collar workers In the comments convincing themselves meetings, pub meetings and desk work is hard work.
Perhaps employers should simply cut wages by 20% for those who work remotely
But the triple lock pension is the problem, right?
I had a teacher in the 80s who used to say people referred to Fridays as POETS day - p*** off early, tomorrow's Saturday. We've all heard of Friday afternoon cars etc.

Whilst I absolutely don't agree with this practice, it's hardly a new concept. When I started working it was primarily with boomers and they were queuing up at the door 10 minutes before knocking off time every day.

Most people I've encountered in the last couple of decades work hard and long hours. Let's not start panicking that this is the beginning of the downfall of western civilisation.
My brother works for the local council. As far as I can tell, he has been on a 4 days week for the last 30 years.
Oh, sorry for the confusion. He is actually at work 5 days a week.
You may not be far out there….
Just ask microsoft or zoom the % of online weekly meetings that happen on a Friday. my guess is its sub 5%
Growth economies don’t behave like this. Decline and fall……
It is, actually. Just a very large country that has totally distorted its economy towards massive subsidisation of a particular range of exports, backed by environmental devastation.
This is just obtaining money by deception, i.e. theft. It is a mark of how pathetic we have become as a country that the FT practically condones it as an emerging social trend under the euphemism "unofficial day off".
Climbing while Rome burns

Unless and until Britains personally re-adopt the mantra, that to work hard is good for themselves and their society, I expect the UK to slow walk (/climb) its way towards an economic implosion.
It would be interesting to know how many firms offer flexible working and no-questions-asked part-time contracts. I'm fortunate to work for a university, which are typically fairly good on this sort of thing. I've been able to go to 80% for childcare purposes (Mondays off), and to be honest I don't think my employer has lost 20% of my output: maybe 10%.

I wouldn't have done this on the sly, but I can imagine some people feeling forced into it if their employer doesn't have the policies to support it officially.
Employees have started to realise that their employers do not care about them, and will inevitably make them redundant when they can find someone younger and cheaper to do the job. Given employers have no loyalty, it is good news that employees now have the same attitude. Take what you can folks and give as little as possible, Thats exactly what your employers are doing to you.
your wall climber should be plain ashamed of himself to be in a leadership role while setting this example. With the job market tightening now hopefully we can filter these people out of the workforce although with the current government it will just add to our welfare bill. Nonetheless these behaviours are now some established in our workforce that we can see why we drift down the productivity tables and are in the mess we are today. sad times.
I think seven days on and three days off would be the ideal. As some commenters have said, the last day of a work stretch (the five day working week) is less productive and the first day back -usually Monday - is also.
It struck me working in China, where they sometimes move working days to the weekend around public holidays; I used to find the 6 or 7 day weeks that system could throw out surprisingly productive.
(Edited)
I work some crazy hours in a global role, calls into early hours and traveling over weekends etc. I'm pretty cool taking the time back when work allows and also for team.members provided they're delivering what's required.

I'd also add that working remotely is far more productive than faffing about with a commute and waiting around the office chatting with colleagues and finding meeting rooms.
Exactly this.
3 years in a PE firm "in 4 days / wk mandatory, if not enough people do it we'll move to 5..."
Now into month 9 at a tech start-up, I go into the office once a fortnight. Apart from saving a fortune i feel like a new person without the commute stress and extra time away from home
I would never, ever take a job that requires me to be in the office full time again. I'd sooner work in a local shop or pub and start living off my loot.
Current place is a 20-25 minute easy drive away and in a nice town with lots of shopping, cafes, pubs etc so it's a nice place to step out of the office into. Free parking on site too.
My last commute was 8 minutes, then it went to 20 seconds during Covid.
I actually struggle to be even half as productive in the office as I am at home.

Most of the people caring about facetime are boomer or gen-x bosses who were able to afford to buy a place in London/city AND a place out in the country. Everyone else has to suck up a commute.

Vote with your feet.
Every time I read an article like this I am reminded of a provincial law firm who finishes early while their city colleagues keep going. It's a global market and our peers simply aren't doing this.
It was until it wasn't
So you meant “finished “ rather than “finishes”?
Yup - definitively past tense. Not enough caffiene at that point in the day :-)
Remember kids your employment contact has your office address , not home.
Quite right - Friday = Funday!
I really hope this doesn’t catch on with nurses, radiologists, specialists, cleaners, etc and others in the health industry, it’s difficult enough getting an appointment anyway.
Funny the one I married must be an exception then.
Give me a break!
If I recall correctly, working two (or more) jobs where you’ve agreed to devote full time to one, is actually fraud.

I’m struggling to see how deliberate and secretly taking the day off isn’t fraud.
What an absolute joke is that not called theft or fraud ??? If you are paid to do a job for so many days why don't people just do what there paid to do, i know allot of people in that industry that moan and say people don't come back to them probably why it is a declining industry ???
Touche

Or when the Board and Senior Management pay themselves handsomely when a firm is underperforming
(Edited)
“ They’ve got a sales rep out on the golf course because he’s just received his bonus and he’s not that bothered about the next one,” she said. “It’s an absolute headache.”
This is called having F U money, everyone should aspire to this.

Work because you want to, not because you need the money or need the job.

If people want to be check-out mentally, let them get on with it.

Those of us that are hustling, have a point to prove and will work to our utmost abilities will continue to do our thing.
And we wonder why inflation is stubborn and productivity low!
Speaking as a genuine leader in a big UK company there’s no way Tom would survive in a full-throttle business.
Having moved to a tech job in the higher ed sector after working in the real world for a change of pace and greater sense of purpose. It’s like going from a five day week to two and a half day week. There’s no incentive to work any harder, you won’t get paid more, you don’t get a bonus and you’ll just end up being given more work to do. It is handy to have a lot of time to learn new skills though.
This seems to be an article about skiving. With the number of job vacancies advertised down 10% YoY and AI threatening further displacement - including in advertising which the wall climber in the article works in - I would be extremely careful
Meanwhile my colleagues in SG have just booked a midday meeting in my diary for today…
Bingo. Stick a call in to prove you’re at work. Marvellous.
They call it POETS day for a reason. P off early, tomorrow's Saturday.
I suspect something that Tom’s colleague’s already know: he’s never around on Friday’s and sets deadlines for Thursdays, the end of his apparent working week. When leadership does this it’s noticeable and becomes part of the water cooler conversation. It also means his colleagues have to do five days work in four. He may well be enjoying his dog focused Fridays. His colleagues less so.
Damn! I'm doing it all wrong obviously. My work from home days are busier and more productive than my office days.
Has anything really changed? I started work in 1983. Friday was the serious pub lunch day. Back to the office at around 3:30pm to kill the last hour or so before we went home.
The insurance industry are keeping this going, in the Leadenhall Market, from approx 11am on Mondays.
The trick is to start the week on late Sunday morning.
From the public sector to consultancy, insurance and banking, long, boozy Friday afternoons have been around for decades. Even car plants saw quality and productivity drop off on Fridays. Oh, and don't even get me started on big manufacturers like BAe. They've never treated Friday as a proper work day.

If anything, the full working Friday is only a recent aberration.
“I’m in a leadership role so it’s probably easier for me to do that than it is for a junior”.
What leadership!
Friday morning 6.30am, dark and cold, raining cats and dogs, kids tired from a long week drag themselves out with heavy bags to walk half a mile to the bus stop

I curl back into duvet, log off FT and continue to ‘work’ from home
20% reduction in productivity and everyone then wonders why they are getting poorer wages aren’t rising etc compared to the rest of the world
I wonder whether Tom works longer evenings or maybe a bit at the weekend? I see potentially a situation where people still do a five day week but they are in charge of how they work it and some people this prioritise free time on a Friday day time over a Monday evening and work accordingly
I’m in a leadership role so it’s probably easier for me to do that than it is for a junior
Touché
Wasn't a lot of evidence for this article, was there?
If they actually work four days it's something to be grateful for . Not many people take their jobs seriously now. Especially customer facing ones . Including the police and civil servants.
I’m all for giving more time off to Scottish government departments. The less time the incompetents spend working the better.
Yep. Probably deserve a war now.
My wife and I call it the dog day. The dog gets priority
Excellent !
Keynes’ forecast finally realised?
And we wonder why we have such poor productivity
Not really, as the nominal hours at work count for productivity. And that includes Tom's time at the gym.
Nor between total income and maximum productivity. You may be at your most productive on Monday morning, but you don't stop working on other days when your productivity is lower because you want to maximise income not productivity. It is only when productivity is negative that you should stop work. That does not mean you should not aim to increase productivity, just that it is not an end in itself
Well that explains a lot. Thats 20% longer to get something done.

Hey I wonder how these people that just sneak a day off every week, would feel if they had lost their job and had to wait an extra month to get their new work/job contract delivered, which meant they couldn't pay some bills, which meant their credit rating went down, so they couldn't remortgage their house, so their mortgage more than doubled?

All because a hiring manager or HR was grooming their dog, or getting ripped abs down the gym?

Now that's productivity!
Never worked anywhere where HR do something after one request - generally best to avoid having to ask them anything. If you do need something then a top tip is to find out where they sit and just turn up there (usually to find them having a mass gossip about something or other). The look on their faces when someone actually comes to see them is priceless.

HR is all about empire building - new head of HR at my place just sent an email round boasting about how many staff she’s added. Went down like a cup of sick given we’ve just had a redundancy programme.
Hard to complain when your role is moved to India.
I was responsible for automating loan originating work of offshore team at Europe's largest bank.

Found they had invented loads of extra activities, which added no value. Was able to reduce offshore team by 42% and still increase throughout.

If the management team had been willing to stand up yo offshore managers, could have eliminared 69% of staff.

This was 2022 2023 in the early days of AI adoption.
Humans are quickly adapt. Any morale boost from moving to a 4 day week will quickly fade then people will start talking excitedly about the 3 day week.
Even getting out of the office at 3pm on Friday to clear away a few things on the way home can be helpful.
(Edited)
Real wages in many sectors have eroded by more than 20% since 2008, so this seems entirely fair to me.
Do you really believe that real wages across the whole economy have declined since 2008 - long before the advent of widespread wfh - because a few workers - in those industries where it’s possible - are less productive on a Friday?

It does seem to be a rational response if you are in that decreasing wage situation.

Maybe you’re the one that’s mixed up?

ps the ‘sweetie’ thing only sounds clever in your own head
Hope you’re proud of yourself Tom. Disgraceful attitude towards your employer and your team.
I read this as stakeholders, and will continue to do so
In my last job, it was very difficult to work on a Friday. Colleagues were hard to get hold of on MS Teams, nothing of worth was really produced, and emails were left untouched. Granted, this was at a company which was clearly going downhill. But it was hugely frustrating when you wanted to get stuff done. People started giving up. I left, partly because that culture started seeping into other days. And there’s only so much ‘recreation’ you can do in the working week before everything pales and you feel like you’re going nowhere. For those enjoying their Fridays now, I’d just say be careful what you wish for!
That was certainly the idea! :)
“ I’m in a leadership role so it’s probably easier for me to do that than it is for a junior.”

One would suspect it would be easy for a junior to do if he/she were working for Tom.
(Edited)
To me he sounds like a good boss. I’ve always hated working for ultra-diligent bosses who spend their hours devising new ways of squeezing more work out of you, and often move on to another employer when I have to suffer one.

I’m not stacking shelves, or working on a production line, here. I do creative work. My mind still thinks about the job in the evenings and at the weekends. And I’m judged on deliverables, not the hours I spend at my desk. So, if I want to snatch a couple of hours here or there for a long lunch, of course I’m going to do it.
But there’s a difference between that and “unofficially taking every Friday off work”. The creation of inequity and disregard for the rules is the real issue here. I’m all in favour of a four-day week, but if someone on my team decided they’d unilaterally implement it on the sly then we’d be having a pretty serious conversation. It shows a lack of respect for the company and for co-workers.
But clearly you’re not that junior and you work autonomously. If I was very junior and had a question about the work or needed support in any way while I’m still learning the job and my manager was MIA on climbing walls and dog walks all day, that would be super annoying.
In my experience there are many people in Gen X who do not know how to manage today’s youngsters. So they prefer to load work on those of us who are their near peers instead, and just let the Gen Y and Z guys get on with whatever they like.
(Edited)
??? Weird request! I don’t know whom he works for. I just commented on the article…

Anyway, I would prefer to work with him than one of those corporate psychos — all too common these days — that has a grand vision of how you ought to be spending your every waking hour!
Could not agree more with your replies in this thread. Nothing more unpleasant than a micro-managing petty tyrant.
Yeah, expose those journalistic sources, that's a surefire way to ensure quality reporting in the long run
Everyone in the country that can get away with it sneakily taking Friday off. I haven’t felt so proud to be British for a long time.
Exactly. Even back in the eighties, Friday afternoons often involved minimal office work (despite 'presenteeism') after a liquid lunch.
Hmmm…. Might the extremely high rates of tax on marginal incomes have something to do with that do you think, especially in the current era of high real inflation?

After all, if one is now having to pay 700-800 quid a month to commute to a well-paid job in London from the sticks, and then pay London prices for a crap lunch somewhere, might it make better sense just to go part-time or take a mediocre salary to do a 9-5 job locally?
Why are you wasting productive work hours commenting on the FT ? Get back to work, or do you have no ambition?
Every time we want to read somebody's comment we have to click a plus button? Seriously? With no explanation?
They just managed to kill conversation with one change. Genius product managers, with people like this, you don’t need censorship.
Sorry but I love it, instant improvement in getting at the quality comments.
The convos sometimes throw up great humour but are usually inane noise and bot/troll riven.
Product manager is on a four-day week, unlikely to sort it by Monday.
That might be the point.
People can just avoid uncomfortable comments entirely.
Its amazing how people try so vehemently to avoid hearing others.
I agree. An improvement. But they still haven’t got it right - you should click once to revel the entire Risto of thread with a little message saying how many more comments there. It’s a bit more complex, but the BBC can do it….
I disagree, you just click the minus button on through top comment to close all the child comments and the next comment is there. It's good to read a few replies before closing the parent comment and this change makes that more cumbersome. Awful ux change
many people didn't know the minus button had a function and wasn't just a "bullet point"
Seriously?
I am Spartacus
Sometimes I think that our current situation of rising regressive movements is just because technology has moved forward so much faster than understanding.
Clicking a button seems straightforward, but then again shouldn’t email be straightforward by now?

It was invented in the 1970’s and after around 50 years, most people have no idea how it works.
Exactly how I was using it. A totally unnecessary change.
Just use sort by most recommend
But with the new system you can't tell how long a given thread is until you've actually opened it up.
It has been requested by me and other long time readers many times, the convos (like most social media) had become totally corrupted by trolls time wasters, smart arses. This is what happens when deregulating anything goes too far.

Let us edit with numbers of recommends at least and be able to filter all other noise out.
We have forgotten how high the standard of comment used to be because we have fallen pray to this free for all mediocrity.

I am all for as much freedom and participation as possible, but this is a serious news outfit and we are in very serious times.
My wife and I call it the dog day. The dog gets priority
Ermm...
Underrated comment ;)
Or the dogging day.
Or indeed the “dogging day”…
When i started work in the early 1980s it was very common to go to the pub on a Friday lunchtime. It was an enjoyable social side to work and as pub closed at 2pm you’d return to the office for a dozy, unproductive afternoon. When the Licensing Act 1988 allowed all-day opening, employers responded by clamping down on office hours drinking entirely. In effect turning a four-and -a-half day week into five.
Just chat to one of the other Friday half-workers and call it "business development".

And this is surely just the corollary of the always-on 24/7 digital work culture? If they want us to be keeping an eye on our emails in the evening then they can't complain when we pop to the gym on a slow Friday.
Agreed. I'm online from 630am to 830pm when WFH. But I take breaks for exercise, family and lunch reading the FT, slotted around calls. Fair deal for me and my employer.
Was the dog also climbing?
Just wait until the FT exposes the French for secretly working once a week
and wait until the FT reveals how the Japanese unofficially work 7 days a week.. oh wait they are owned by Nikkei so that won't happen.
Flagrant labour malpractice 😡🤬

Flagrant labour malpractice in Japan 🥰😍
Maybe, but it’s also an effective way to avoid listening to an unpleasant spouse ;)
Those who work and when they work, yes. Doesn't add up to much.
If you say so dude!
Don't forget the long lunches
(Edited)
They have well earned to retire at 62 with such high productivity levels… whereas the UK folk will have to be working until they are 70 in the near future and by the time some of us will be retiring…