The workweek of four days (or 36 hours) is a project that is carried out in different countries and companies. The main objective of this is to improve the quality of life of workers, while testing the results on productivity.
The technology company Quales works on data solutions. In the month of August it began to implement its own test of workweek reduced. So far, the results are very favorable. “The business improved its production capacity,” said Judith Irusta, Chief People Officer of Quales, regarding the reduced hourly load.
All technology companies face a common challenge, having a high level of turnover, meaning that their employees go to other companies and vice versa, this occurs because workers are offered higher pay or more benefits in other companies, or they simply turn to the foreign market in search of opportunities. A new benefit that arises for hoarding employees could be the implementation of the workweek of four days.
Despite this inconvenience, companies are looking for new benefits to give workers to improve working conditions and stimulate their permanence. One of the best positioned in the world, is the aforementioned workweek reduced. At Quales, the implementation of the reduced week It is not mandatory, but they clarify that no one rejected it.
Implementation of the reduced workweek
The technology company began to apply the four weekly days to the 150 workers of the company, which are distributed between Argentina, Uruguay and Spain. A month ago, Quales was rated a Great Place to Work.
According to the preliminary results of the implementation of the workweek reduced are favourable. In this case they maintained 100% productivity, reduced eventual absenteeism and even they noted that workers organized their medical shifts or other personal matters in overtime, which in turn reduced absences on the rest of the days.
The element that generated the most fear was that the team leaders could apply the program without overloading themselves. In this sense, it is emphasized that the key is coordination and the role of project coordinators to optimize the distribution of tasks is highlighted.
On the economic cost of the measure, they emphasize that there is none because the maintenance of productivity caused profitability to be maintained. It is about “hacking working models” they explained.
