Jobs in India are divided into two groups -- ones that have six days working and one that have five days working. Employees looking to join are often looking for the latter as one more day to unwind and relax in a week is the most perfect thing.?
However, in case you didn¡¯t know, various companies are looking to extend this to a day further -- with a four-day work routine, where people work for 10 hours each day from Monday to Thursday. I know it sounds too good to be true, but it actually is.
Various companies in the US and other countries around the world have adopted this work routine and surprisingly, it has helped the company get more productive. Yes, it sounds odd how working one day less can help generate more work, but it surprisingly does.
According to a recent report in NPR, a fast-food joint dubbed Shake Shack started with a 32-hour-week. In the smaller time frame, Shake Shack is just asking them to get work done in that time frame. It has been testing this since over a year and a half now, and since then they¡¯ve seen a considerable spike in recruitment.
According to Shake Shack¡¯s President Tara Comonte, the staff likes that this gives them the ability to take their child to school one day or pay a day less for babysitting/ daycare.?
During November, Even Microsoft tried four-days a week trial last summer and saw a whopping 40 percent improvement in productivity -- quantified in sales per employee. The shortened weeks also led to more efficient meetings, happier workers.
Another company in the New Zealand called Perpetual Guardian decided to take this switch after seeing the impact on the mental health of the employees as well as their families. They started with a batch of 240 employees and partnered with academic researchers in Auckland that looked at the effects of working four days a week.
They saw that shortening the timing resulted in better productivity per hour and them getting less distracted. And in case they lost productivity -- the company would shift them back to a five-day working. So many, in order to earn another day off worked harder.?
Even authorities are working to bring the four-day working routine through a legal path. In the US, a Washington State senator introduced a bill to make 32-hour weeks a standard. Even the prime minister in Russia Dimitry Mehedev is working to make four-day working weeks a norm.