Microsoft Japan Introduces 4-Day Work Week, Productivity Shoots Up By 40 Percent

For a long time, Japan has had a reputation of having terrible work-life balance. In fact, there's a phenomenon called karoshi, which is literally death caused by overwork.?

Karoshi claimed the lives of 191 people in 2016 and, according to a government report over a fifth of Japanese employees are at risk due to working more than 80 hours of overtime, a month, usually unpaid.

Reuters

Keeping this terrible work-life scenario in mind, several businesses are finally taking actual steps to address the problem. And one of them is Microsoft Japan.

According to reports, the company carried out a 'Working Reform Project' called the Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019 for one month - giving 2,300 employees every Friday off, in addition to Saturday and Sunday.

Results from a study - commissioned and released by the company this week - showed a massive 39.9 per cent jump in workers' productivity over the time.

According to reports, the four days pushed everyone to get things done for the week, many meetings were cut, shortened, or changed to virtual meetings instead of in-person.?

That's not all,?25.4 per cent of the employees fewer days off during the month and used 23.1 per cent less electricity in the office - that's also contributing?to sustainability.?

?92.1 percent of employees said that they liked the four-day workweek?at the end of the trial.?

Many companies around the world have also held similar trials, and reported favourable results.?

In 2018, a study conducted by the?International Labour Organisation showed shorter hours generally resulted in higher productivity.?Reports state that Microsoft Japan reportedly plans to repeat its four-day work week experiment next summer.