Microsoft Japan Shifted To A Four-Day Work Week And Employee Productivity Went Through The Roof

Over the past year, Microsoft's Japanese division has been trying a revolutionary new way of improving its work environment. Instead of lame attempts at levity like company parties, it's actively attempting to manage employee stress and burnout.

Getty Images

And they've done it by reducing the amount of time employees work.

In August last year, Microsoft Japan ran a campaign it called the "Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019". For that one month the tech giant implemented a three-day weekend, giving its 2,300 employees every Friday off. The best part was that these days off didn't come out of employee vacation days.?

After implementing this program, Microsoft Japan found that reducing its working week to four days at a time increased productivity and decreases costs across the division. Each employee on average sold 40 percent more compared to in the same period the previous year. Employees also felt less of a need to take time off just to get a chance to breathe. They apparently took 25.4 percent fewer days off during the month.

That basically means employees were achieving more, despite being at work for less time in the week.

Reuters

Additionally, employees printed 58.7 percent fewer pages, and used 23.1 percent less electricity. That last one is probably because the entire office was closed an extra day in the week. That's quite a bit of savings that can add up over the year.

The company's internal study shows that the increase in productivity is largely because of how the policy on meetings had to be changed. With only four days to get things done in a week, many meetings had to be cut short or cancelled outright, or turned into virtual gatherings to save travel time.

And the employees were ecstatic about the new work schedule. A whopping 92.1 percent of Microsoft Japan employees said that they liked the four day workweek. And because of the program's success, the company might continue again next year, or even other times of the year as well.

Reuters

It's a massive change for a company housed in a country with one of the worst work cultures in the world. And perhaps Microsoft will learn from this and expand it to its branches in other countries as well. And for those of us not working for the tech giant, we can only hope we get a chance to work just four days a week too.