In the 1960’s, my Dad was taken to various staff events at the factory he worked in, telling him prepare for the coming age of leisure when – thanks to advances in automation -  people would only have to work a few days a week. Of course, this never happened.

In the 80’s and 90’s I, and many of my trade union colleagues at the time, campaigned to persuade the Civil Service to reduce the hours of the working week, and even to consider allow sabbatical leave for longer serving employees (Extended Junkets? On Taxpayers’ money? I can hear the Daily Mail readers from here). We never really made significant inroads.

But, as ever, Technology leads and others follow and I have been delighted and heartened to see many companies embracing the 4 day week, such as M3 partners, edison365, who are also rightly considered a Great Place to Work. It’s a brilliant move, allowing people a great boost to their “downtime” with, by all accounts, very little impact on productivity. And for the employee, receiving this enhancement without a pay cut, is fantastic, and I am sure results in a more energised, loyal and motivated team.

But many of my current colleagues and co-workers are contractors. And many of my friends in this game are currently working under the bizarre and perverse IR35 arrangements – you know, the set up that gives you all of the responsibilities of having/being an employee without any advantage to the ‘engaged” party – no holidays, no training, no pension….and no 4 Day week?

What are the rules for a day rate contractor who wants to organise this way of working for their own business within a client that works the same way– 20% rise in the day rate? 

And for the individual caught by the command, direction and control rules, and thus considered to be an employee under IR35 – is this a case that either the “employer” does the same for the contractor as for the perm team and accepts a bump in the notional day rate of 20% or is this another glaring differentiator that vast numbers of IR35-caught contractors are not and should not be considered employees?

Discuss.