Could the Four Day Week Solve the Skills Shortages for Town and Parish Councils?

Recruitment problems have become an increasing issue for Town and Parish Councils, particularly for skilled posts.  Finding CiLCA Qualified Clerks and/or financially trained RFO’s has become a real challenge across England.

Its not just these jobs either. Recruiting suitably qualified technical staff, whether for external work or managing facilities such as Community Centres or Sport Centres is not easy. 

Its not just recruitment that’s a problem, retention is also a big issue.  With Employers of all descriptions offering an increasing range of inducements to attract recruits, staff retention is another big issue, which resource strapped Town and Parish Councils struggle to compete with.

To address these issues Councils have tried a variety of options, such as appointing Members to fill posts on an unpaid basis, or paying locums for long term support.  In many cases these can only be temporary fixes.

Could reducing working hours, but maintaining current pay levels solve the problem?

A recent six month study involving over 3000 Employees, conducted by Autonomy, the University of Cambridge and Boston University College (US) found that reducing working hours, but keeping pay unchanged, resulted in significant improvements in the following areas:

1.     Improved productivity.

2.     Recruitment.  Participating Employers were more attractive to recruits.

3.     Improved innovation and ideas from staff who suffered less pressure and stress.

4.     Retention.  Having enjoyed the benefits of reduced hours, staff were less likely to leave.

5.     Sickness and absenteeism were also reduced.

The study involved full time staff reducing a five day week to four days.  However most Employees in Town and Parish Councils are part time, so would these benefits transfer to this sector?

The benefit was not necessarily in having one less day to work, but of having more personal time during the week, regardless of the hours worked.  In addition there was the perceived trust placed in staff by their Employers, who demonstrated in reducing working hours that Employees could still be relied on to perform the whole job, in exchange for 20% more time at home.  Having such trust in the workforce was clearly rewarded for the Employers, as demonstrated in the improved productivity results.

So how does it work?

1.     Change, no matter what it is, can raise suspicion from some staff.  Communication is essential.  Staff need to be fully aware of the benefits, particularly to the Council, to remove any anxiety about Trojan Horses.  The scheme also needs promoting to Elected Members as well as the community, and for them to understand what the benefits are so that they support the idea.

2.     Conduct an initial trial period for approximately 3 to 6 months to give sceptical Employees and Councillors an opportunity to test the idea, prior to deciding whether to implement it permanently or not.  Staff could be issued with a Fixed Term Amendment notice to their contracts, which clearly spells out that the could revert to their previous full time hours, should the Council decide to do so once the trial has ended.

3.     Conduct a roll out.  Start by implementing the scheme department by department, rather than all at once. Also, to gain Employee support for the scheme a Council could start with their Operatives, Community Centre Staff, Grounds Maintenance Staff, etc, rather than senior staff, such as the Clerk/Deputy Clerk/RFO.  This helps to remove the criticism from Employees this this is just “benefits for the bosses”.

4.     Ongoing monitoring is important.  Although it may be difficult to objectively measure performance and output, key indicators such as staff sickness, the number of leavers, and responses to vacancy adverts can be measured, especially during a trial period.  An improvement in these criteria alone would be a significant benefit to most Councils.

There is, however, some possible criticism of the study.  It was only conducted over 6 months.  During that time the Employees may have still been appreciating the fact that they were working less hours for the same money. Will that response still exist in 2 or 3 years, once the reduced hours have become the norm, and the novelty has worn off?

PROFILE

Chris Moses LLM Chartered FCIPD is Managing Director of Personnel Advice & Solutions Ltd.  He is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and has a Master’s Degree in Employment Law. If you have any questions regarding these issues please feel free to contact him on (01529) 305056 or email p.d.solutions@zen.co.uk

www.personneladviceandsolutions.co.uk