Simon Cowell might be right: is there any point working on Fridays?

Amid the ongoing debate around how we work, Simon Cowell, of all people, has waded in – revealing that he favours a four-day week.

“Don’t work on Fridays, because you don’t have to,” he advises. “I don’t think anyone should be working five days a week. It’s just pointless.” Thanks for that, Simon.

His intervention comes at a critical moment in the wider discussion about the future of the office, the pros and cons of hybrid working, and the ideal length of the working week.

Last week, the government tried to take a lead, issuing an edict demanding that civil servants should work at least three days in the office. However, that hit a snag when it was realised there wasn’t enough desk space in Whitehall for all employees.

Surveys keep showing that hybrid – whereby employees divide their week between days in the office and days at home – is now the most popular working style. But stories abound of working-from-homers finding that they struggle to gain promotion, and that their careers risk hitting a “Zoom ceiling”.

Going against prevailing working trends can go very wrong, and not just for employees. Co-working giant WeWork, once the world’s most valuable start-up, recently went bankrupt after betting big on office space – only to find, post-pandemic, that the workforce is increasingly WFH.

That being said, with the future of work still up for grabs, why insist on old habits?

A young office worker in New York recently cut through the chatter when she took to TikTok to share her exhaustion at having to deal with a commute and a regular 9-to-5 in the city. “I’m so upset,” said a tearful Brielle Asero, who goes by the username @brielleybelly123. “Nothing to do with my job at all, but just like the 9-to-5 schedule in general is crazy… I don’t have time for anything.”

Which prompted the inevitable pronouncements about success not being handed to you, and warnings that Gen Z should not expect remote jobs as standard, let alone hours as “good” as 9-to-5. But perhaps it’s too easy to dismiss how exhausting the traditional working week can be, especially if it’s new to you – and to assume that it has to be this way.

While of course the working week can crescendo towards the weekend (something shared by Premiership footballers and Sunday newspaper journalists), for many of us Friday is the day of catching up on emails, tying up loose ends, and perhaps hoping you can get on the motorway to your weekend away before the traffic gets too busy.

London book publishing has long enjoyed what is euphemisticall called “summer working hours” that give staff Friday afternoons off. With Friday often a default WFH day – to the point that in many towns, Thursday evening is the new Friday night out – the suspicion is that many others are informally doing the same, with TikTok full of skits making fun of people’s horror when someone schedules a Friday afternoon call.

No wonder, then, that a large-scale pilot of a four-day working week in the UK saw nearly all the businesses involved, from financial firms to fish and chip shops, stick to their new hours. Who wouldn’t welcome a three-day weekend?

And yet. Simon Cowell is many things, but he’s no everyman (and certainly no everywoman). At 64, the TV mogul might be able to embrace a shorter working week, as he can whip a new show into shape with just a few phone calls. But for lots of us, time still is of the essence – especially at the start of a career, when you’re unlikely to have a staff like Simon’s to delegate to, and little more to offer than your enthusiasm and hours. Five days cannot always equal four.

Of course, the self-employed can already do as they please, and yet they often work longer than anyone. For every freelancer taking advantage of their flexibility to upload irritating posts of them relaxing at the lido/park/pub on a Friday, rest assured that they’re probably working a drizzly Sunday afternoon to make up the hours.

For others, a full week of work is a privilege. The gig economy and zero-hours contracts mean that many don’t know if the work will even be there for them come Friday – or any day.

Because there’s always the question of money. While in an ideal world you might drop down to a four-day week and keep your full salary, as in the trial, for most of us there’s a cost-benefit assessment to be done: are you likely to end up doing the same amount of work in fewer hours, for less pay? Not necessarily, but I know more than one working mother who has decided against changing her working pattern for that reason.

And, in fact, the four-day week didn’t actually work for everyone who trialled it. The trade-off for a three-day weekend was a more intense working week, some companies reported, leaving staff “exhausted” once they got to their scheduled day off. Other employers struggled to support a round-the-clock service, or couldn’t get enough staff to cover their needs.

That’s not to say all our hard-won flexibility shouldn’t be protected. Core hours, compressed hours, job sharing and, yes, WFH are tools to be used to make work work for us as best we can – while realising that there isn’t always a one-size-fits-all solution.

So, Cowell is right, to a point: by all means, don’t work on Fridays if you don’t have to. Otherwise, book one off. Because, remember, as Mr X Factor surely does, part of the joy of not working on a Friday is knowing that everyone else is.