1. How does this program help KPMG?

Accounting firm KPMG’s UK offices wanted to decrease payroll costs while maintaining the company’s commitment to its employees. So KPMG gave its UK-based employees the choice of either volunteering for a four-day workweek at 90 percent of their salary (80 percent if fewer than 75 percent of employees signed up); a four- to twelve-week sabbatical at 30 percent of their base pay; either or both; or neither.
Volunteering for the program, called Flexible Futures, triggered an eighteen-month change in the employees’
employment contract giving KPMG the right to exercise the chosen option if and when it needed to.
This allowed the company to reduce employee hours and pay on short notice and reduce the need for large-scale reductions if economic challenges arose.