A shorter working week

Do the statements agree with the claims of the writer? Choose YES, NO, or NOT GIVEN.

These are the writer's opinions. If a detail is missing, choose “Not Given”. Do not guess the answer yourself, even if you think it is true.

I am not interested in the four-day week as a lifestyle brand. I am interested in it as a test of whether offices confuse presence with work. The trials I have read do not show a miracle. They show that some teams keep output steady when a day is removed, and that others quietly push the missing hours into the evening. Anyone who calls every trial a success is selling something.

What the successful trials share is dull: they cut meetings first. A team that keeps a calendar full of status updates and then tries to do five days of tasks in four will simply start earlier and finish later. The gift is not the Friday off. The gift is the hour that used to be a meeting about a meeting.

I do not accept the claim that a shorter week only suits office staff. Nurses and drivers cannot leave a ward or a route unmanned, but they can be given predictable extra staff so that each person works fewer shifts. That costs money. Pretending the idea is free is how it gets dropped.

I am less sure about pay. Some writers insist wages must never fall. I think that is right for workers already on low pay, and I think it is a real argument, not a slogan. For highly paid roles I can imagine a smaller salary attached to a genuine four-day pattern, if the cut is chosen rather than imposed. I have not seen a clean study that separates those two cases, and I will not invent one.

The reason I still want the experiment is personal and practical. A society that measures people by how long they sit in a building will misread carers, researchers, and anyone whose best hour is not at a desk. Shortening the official week will not fix that on its own. It will, at least, make the misreading harder to defend.

• YES The statement agrees with the writer
• NO The statement contradicts the writer
• NOT GIVEN The writer does not say

1. 1. Every published trial of a four-day week has succeeded.ChooseYES, The statement agrees with the writerNO, The statement contradicts the writerNOT GIVEN, The writer does not say
2. 2. Cutting meetings matters more than simply removing Friday.ChooseYES, The statement agrees with the writerNO, The statement contradicts the writerNOT GIVEN, The writer does not say
3. 3. A shorter week can apply to shift workers if staffing is increased.ChooseYES, The statement agrees with the writerNO, The statement contradicts the writerNOT GIVEN, The writer does not say
4. 4. Highly paid staff should never be offered a lower salary for fewer days.ChooseYES, The statement agrees with the writerNO, The statement contradicts the writerNOT GIVEN, The writer does not say
5. 5. Most carers would prefer to work on Mondays.ChooseYES, The statement agrees with the writerNO, The statement contradicts the writerNOT GIVEN, The writer does not say