Murrumbidgee Council to trial four-day work week for 15 months

Employees will get 52 long weekends next year when a four-day working week trial begins at a south-west New South Wales council.

Murrumbidgee Council will be the first local government organisation in the country to implement a four-day work week model in a bid to increase productivity and attract staff.

"The agreement will be for 15 months so that we can have a review in 12 months … and we can determine whether it's going to continue or revert back," council general manager John Scarce said.

"As everybody knows, in rural Australia it is hard to attract staff so you always have to have a competitive edge."

The trial will retain a 38-hour week for people at the council's depot, office, library and in its work crews at Darlington Point, Coleambally and Jerilderie, but compressed into four days.

Most services will be closed on Fridays, though the childcare centre and caravan park will remain open and on-call essential service workers will still be rostered.

Mr Scarce said the trial will start in January.

He said the data already collected, particularly around road repair and construction, indicated a positive outcome was likely.

"In a week, we can grade 6 kilometres [of road]; with this compressed to four days, then we expect that 6 kilometres to be done, but there's also probably going to be another half a kilometre of road done because the lost travel time is work time," he said.

It follows staff and community consultations that indicated 75 per cent of staff preferred the compressed work week, while just under 40 per cent of community submissions opposed it.

Over the next six months, Mr Scarce will put together an agreement about what the working week will look like and which performance indicators will be used to measure the trial's success.

Community divided

Darlington Point resident Michael Painting said he was dubious about how it would work, especially outside daylight-saving time.

"I can't see how they can increase the productivity when there's going to be less daylight hours to work in with the extended hours," he said.

Alan Surl, a former Murrumbidgee Council employee, said while he could see it working, the council had to ensure the change had positive community outcomes.

"If you extend the day, you can be more active, get more done without having to crank up and then wind down and travel to and fro, but again, it sounds quite simple," he said.

Jody Heath, who owns a butcher shop in Darlington Point, supports the new model, based on his own experience.

Three years ago, he cut the shop's working days from five and a half to four days per week and, so far, it has been a success.

"It really works having that one day off a week. It's just more productive for us. We got a lot of early starts and later finishes, but we get a lot more work done," he said.

"We've been in business now for 30 years this year, and with the five and a half days that we were doing, you never got a lot of time for yourself … having the four days there makes up for that bit of time out that you need."

Union supports move

The United Services Union, the peak body for council workers in NSW, which supports reduced workdays, has been negotiating with Murrumbidgee Council about the proposal.

"This is the first council nationally to trial shutting the whole council for the day," industrial officer Stuart Geddes said.

Mr Geddes said while it was uncharted waters for Australia, the model has been a success in overseas markets.

"A lot of the data comes from Scandinavian countries … When countries, particularly in the local government sector, implemented a four-day work week, they saw an improvement of productivity despite longer work hours," he said.

Mr Scarce said while he anticipates some teething issues with the community, he was optimistic about the outcome of the trial for workers.

"For the staff, I think it will be quite an easy transition, and we're hoping it will also be a recruitment attraction as well," he said.