It is a busy Friday afternoon at Stag salon in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle. The sunburst yellow interior has been complimented by the sunny capital sky outside as staff flit around the floor, casually chatting to clients and finely measuring the intricate points of each cut.
Weekend plans are high on the agenda for most at the end of the traditional working period, but for those trimming and styling here, that looks slightly different.
As a select number of companies across the UK gear up for the latest trial of a condensed business period, Stag is preparing for the one year anniversary of their move towards the system.
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In May 2021, owners Bridget Honan and Murray McRae took a “leap of faith” by moving to a four-day week as a way of allowing employees to ‘fully switch off’ coming out of the coronavirus pandemic.
The husband and wife duo, who opened their first outlet on Lady Lawson Street in 2014, say the move has led to staff feeling “happier and less stressed” adding that they see it as “the future” of employment.
“I can’t see us ever going back to the old system,” Bridget said.
“We had that thought of taking a leap of faith that came from wanting to do something positive for our staff that would have a positive impact for them.
“We’ve found they have more energy. It feels like they are happy that their employers are thinking about the overall wellbeing of the workplace rather than just the business side.”
The six-month trial, run by researchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, will run from June 1, with employees receiving 100 per cent of their wages for 80 per cent of the time.
A total of 60 with 3,000 staff have signed up to take part in the scheme, run by campaign group 4 Day Week Global.
Some firms in Scotland are already in the midst of a similar pilot, which began in January. Research by Advice Direct Scotland found the move 'reduced staff absence and turnover while increasing productivity and the quality of applicants' compared to its five-day equivalent after implementing the timetable in 2018.
For Bridget, 31, and Murray, 34, the inspiration came via feedback gained from their 15 employees and dozens of customers during the pandemic-induced lockdown when homes and offices became one and the same for millions of workers.
“A lot of our clients say that they struggle to switch off because their home and their work have effectively become the same place,” Bridget said.
“When you can’t separate your work and your life, it becomes very easy to be burned out. When we came back from lockdown, there was a lot of talk around that time of people saying life was never going to be the same again and we started to think, well what if we change something for the better?”
Murray added: “It was all about being focused on the health and balance our staff were going to have.
“We had done a lot of work behind the scenes in terms of the business side, we put all the focus on making sure our staff’s health and wellbeing was at the forefront.”
Campaigners claim the system has wider benefits other than those surrounding employee wellbeing with 4 day week - the group backing the trial later this year - argue a move to a standard 32-hour pattern could reduce the UK’s carbon footprint by up to 127 million tons per year by taking the equivalent of the country’s entire private fleet off the road while tackling issues around unemployment rates and gender equality.
Similar schemes in the likes of Iceland, Japan and New Zealand have produced encouraging results, yet no major international companies have confirmed their place in the UK-wide trial as yet.
In Scotland, firms taking part include a creative agency and a whisky distiller, however Bridget is clear it is not just office-based settings that can feel the benefits.
“We all know in office jobs there is a lot of time that is effectively dead,” she said.
“Sometimes you work intensively and sometimes you don’t. And it is very interesting to apply that to hairdressing where it is hourly, one after the other.
“There were still 15-20 minute gaps in the day where you were waiting for clients. Now what we’ve done is effectively remove the gaps so that the staff are working more efficiently, but also more intensively, there’s no gaps but they also work less. They just do the work in the time that is required.”
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At Stag, Friday’s roaring trade suggests there has been little to no impact on the overall business. The couple opened up their second outlet, on Haymarket Terrace, to a flurry of old and new customers in June 2020 just as the country was emerging from lockdown.
They are now determined the four-day pattern is here to stay, regardless of the outcome of the national trial.
“You really need something like that to shake you up a bit,” Bridget said.
“When you think about it. Five days out of seven at work, you don’t have a lot of time for your personal life. The actual balance is not good. It would feel unnatural going back.”
Murray added: “We know that if this is all going to fall apart, if the four-day week is the worst thing to ever happen to the human race; we can always go back to the five-day week. “But we don’t want to do that, we want to try something that will affect change.”
