We're hiring: Consultant Autonomy are looking for a new Consultant to join our team.

The Autonomy Institute is hiring! 🚨

We're looking for a new Consultant to join our growing team, delivering shorter working weeks for organisations of all kinds 🕙

Deadline: Monday 20th January

More info below 👇

Councils Pilot Programme | 4 Day Week

Really pleased to announce today our new @4dayweek.bsky.social Pilot Programme for local councils, building on the success of South Cambridgeshire District Council's trial and the government's new approach of giving councils more autonomy over workforce management

www.4dayweek.co.uk/councils-pil...

Does Labour dare to renew the welfare state? The 1945 Labour Manifesto was a startling feat of political imagination. Does Starmer have the courage to go big again?

Today, the question arises: Does Labour have the vision and courage to renew the welfare state for the 21st century?

Our Basic Income Lead, Cleo Goodman writing in OpenDemocracy 👇

Jobs and Wellbeing: reopening the debate Sociologist David Frayne and Max Maher unpick the perceived link between jobs and wellbeing with an extensive review of available studies.

To add to this, back in 2021 David Frayne and Max Maher put together a pretty comprehensive review of the literature on the link (or lack of it!...) between jobs and wellbeing for @autonomy-institute.bsky.social

autonomy.work/portfolio/jo...

Iceland’s shorter working week has been a huge success – and it’s changed my family’s life | María Hjálmtýsdóttir For 90% of working Icelanders, a 36-hour week means less stress, more job satisfaction and time to enjoy life beyond work, says teacher María Hjálmtýsdóttir

Iceland’s shorter working week isn’t just about fewer hours. It’s about less stress, more time with loved ones, and a happier society 🕒

María Hjálmtýsdóttir on how reduced working time has changed her life 👇

Representing a gig economy: gender, visibility, and news coverage of on-demand work during the pandemic Read our new report examining news media narratives surrounding the gig economy in the UK press during the Covid pandemic.

📊 During Covid, UK media overwhelmingly focused on male-dominated gig work like driving & delivery — neglecting care work and other feminised parts of the on-demand economy

Findings from our recent report suggest we need to rethink how we frame the gig economy! 🚴‍♂️🚕

Silly I know but I’ve penned an ode- or poem if you will- to my new favourite app, bluesky. Be kind in your judgement I beseech you my liege!. lol 🪶

Ministers Reflect | Institute for Government Interviews with former ministers on the realities of the role and how to be effective in government.

This will be great, would add (not news to you, but potentially good for followers looking at this) that the @instituteforgov.bsky.social "ministers reflect" series has some great bits of insight from interviews with devolved ministers

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/ministers-re...

There's little doubt that Iceland's experimentation has helped encourage public sector trials elsewhere in Europe – from Spain to Scotland (where we've been helping the devolved government run a reduced hours pilot)

Other UK governments... we're looking at you

Going Public: Iceland's Journey to a Shorter Working Week Read Autonomy and Alda's report on the public sector pilot of shorter working weeks in Iceland - the largest of its kind.

This build on our 2021 report, which really kicked off a global conversation on shorter working hours, and explored the story of how Iceland ended up with a shorter working week as a 'new normal'

in short: trade unions and brave public sector innovation

autonomy.work/portfolio/ic...

On firmer ground: Iceland's ongoing experience of shorter working weeks Read our new report analysing the latest data on Iceland's ongoing experience with shorter working weeks.

Here's our most recent report, released last month & co-authored by me and Guðmundur, looking at data covering 2021-22

We found uptake had spread wide across the economy: more than half (59%) of workers had been offered reduced working hours in the past two years

autonomy.work/portfolio/on...

Been a privilege to work with colleagues in Iceland to share data from the country's widespread shift to a shorter working week, as featured in recent @autonomy-institute.bsky.social research 🇮🇸

Always amazing to read first-hand account of how reduced working time changes lives 👇

Given that Asghar can't be unaware of the quite horrific stuff Lee Waters has been on the receiving end of recently, this is quite a bit past grossly insensitive

Although, I should think in this instance, it does lie fairly straightforwardly in Williams' expansive intellectual generosity

Quite wonderful demonstration of how, the greater the polite restraint shown by a reviewer quite fairly entitled to savage the object at hand, the more devastating the effect.

The Rowan Williams review of the new Peterson book is wonderful for its incredibly understated panning of it:

'Right to switch off' law will be a litmus test for Labour's plans for workers' rights As work boundaries blur, the Labour government’s pledge for a new 'right to switch off' is desperately needed.

Writing in the Big Issue, our Head of Operations Jack Kellam argues that how the government pursues a 'Right to Switch Off' will be a litmus test for its wider package of workers' rights👇

Can we get the carynx over for the rugby this weekend?