FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
While in Greece the standard full-time working week is 40 hours, usually eight hours a day for five days, an alternative model of work organization has been tested in Germany. A pilot program involved 45 organizations, which implemented the 4-day week on the condition that productivity remained unchanged.
The initiative was promoted by the consulting company Intraprenör and involved over 900 employees from various German companies, under the supervision of the University of Münster.
The model envisioned maintaining 100% of the salary in exchange for working 80% of the time, with the only commitment being that performance would not decline. In practice, companies reorganized schedules and reduced weekly working time by about four hours.
According to the study results, three out of four participants would prefer not to return to the traditional five-day week. About 82% of staff said they favor this model. The data also shows that employees reported less stress, improved mental health and an average of 38 minutes more sleep per week.
Although reducing working hours could lead to increased workload, companies undertook deep restructuring of internal processes. They shortened meetings and invested in new digital tools to speed up daily tasks.
However, the German Economic Institute raised some methodological concerns about the experiment. The institute believes that the voluntary, rather than random, selection of participants may have contributed to a more positive assessment of the model.
The institute also warns of potential macroeconomic risks from a shorter workweek in Germany, a country facing a severe shortage of skilled labor due to demographic aging.
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