The Más País project is still in the pits and some companies such as Telefónica are advancing the measure by offering their staff this alternative, but with lower salaries, like Belgium. In other companies, such as the Andalusian EMA Competición and Software DelSol, on the other hand, they obtain a positive balance with the establishment of the labor project and with the maintenance of salaries.
While in Spain the debate on this measure is gaining more and more strength, there are companies around the world that have applied the reduced working hours model for a long time. Places where the concept of “caring for the worker” is applied, with whom this measure is committed to “greater productivity” and achieving a higher level of satisfaction among customers and staff.
The Covid-19 pandemic brought with it teleworking and flexible hours. These factors opened a door to renew traditional work formats and thus create work reduction initiatives such as those applied in Iceland, Belgium or the recent pilot models in Portugal and the United Kingdom.
In this list you can see the companies that successfully launched tests and pilots to work 4 days or less.
Perpetual Guardian:
This New Zealand-based estate planning and trust management company helped make the four-day workweek a serious topic of consideration in 2018, giving employees the option to participate without loss of pay. Andrew Barnes, founder of Perpetual Guardian, points out on the company’s website that the four-day week “isn’t just about having one day off a week, it’s about being productive and meeting customer service standards, meeting with personal and team business goals and objectives.
Microsoft:
The tech giant designed the “Work Life Choice Challenge” pilot program in 2019. In this way, Microsoft gave its employees paid vacations every Friday, cut meeting times in half and limited attendance to accommodate shifts. The reported results were a 40% increase in productivity and a 23% reduction in electricity costs. Microsoft is currently allowing its staff to work from home. up to 50% of the time subject to supervisor approval.
Unilever:
In 2020, the British importer, responsible for products such as Dove and Lipton tea, applied its own one-year test at its New Zealand offices with the application of the reduced working hours measure, among its 170,000 employees. In consultation with Perpetual Guardian’s Andrew Barnes, the company was inspired to experiment and make the tentative shift for employees due to the Covid-19 pandemic remote work reorganization.
Shopify:
The Canadian e-commerce site is not for convention. Having instituted unconventional work rules, such as no-meeting days, with the arrival of Covid-19, the company leaned into the evolution of remote work and in June 2020 they changed the work weeks to 4 days. The result: “overwhelmingly positive.”
Shake Shack:
The fast food chain adopted in 2018 the measure of reducing, in some places, 32 hours of work without reducing the salary of store managers. With this, there was an increase in recruitment. In 2020, the chain expanded the trial to a third of its 164 US locations by employing new ground beef supply tracking software to offset reduced staff hours. In September 2021, Shake Shack said it was pausing the show due to the pandemic.
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