City law firm Fladgate, which claims to have “one of the largest real estate offerings in the UK” is said to have told associate solicitors in the real estate department that they will be hit with a reduction in pay in return for being put on a four-day week in order to cut costs. This is not said to be mandatory, but will run for three months initially and is designed to avoid imposing redundancies.
Slaughter and May, one of the so-called Magic Circle firms, confirmed the introduction of a “job design scheme”, which would result in some lawyers working shorter hours for less pay. Slaughter and May is renowned as having the highest-earning partners in the City, with average pay alleged to be more than £3m, claimed the move was to improve working practices, and to create a better work-life balance.
This comes as RBG, the holding company for Rosenblatt and Memery Crystal, issued a profit warning, citing a slowdown in commercial property instructions as a partial reason.
Trowers & Hamlins have also opened a redundancy consultation with 25 of its real estate lawyers, a few weeks after the firm had made 18 other property lawyers redundant.
Many other businesses are trialling or have implemented a four-day week, but many of those have not cut pay as a result. This movement was largely given impetus by working practices during the pandemic. However, a number of companies that have tried a four-day week have said that particularly with customer-facing businesses, it doesn't work. UK web-hosting company Krystal found that it was difficult to maintain weekly opening times without recruiting extra staff. They have reintroduced a five-day week for its customer help desk. Under the four-day week, they found that customer response times suffered. Other companies have reported better results. More than 60 UK organisations took part in such a trial in 2022. 18 of those reportedly adopted the policy permanently, and a further 38 extended the experiment. Most participants were from the marketing, advertising and professional services industries, where it could be argued working hours can be reshuffled more easily.
