The four-day work week proposal in India: Will it work?

In February 2021 Chandra Secretary, Indian Ministry of labour and employment, announced that a new Labour proposal was under consideration in India that would give employers the flexibility to provide a four-day work week. Furthermore, Chandra stated that companies were bound to limit the working hours per week to 48 hours and to 12 hours per day. The new Labour rules would be applicable to all establishment and factories.

Earlier, each working day in India was for nine hours and included one hour for rest. Employers had to take the consent of the government to reduce the number of work days in a week. Once the new rules were implemented, companies would not need to take the government approval to reduce the number of work days in a week. However, both companies and employees would need to agree to the four-day week schedule before it could be implemented in an organisation.

Speaking about the need for the four-days work proposal Chandra said, now we are thinking that we should provide this flexibility and that should be with the consultation of the employees and employers. They all agree that there should be some flexibility. We should not be rigid about six-day working week. If the employer feels that he is able to achieve efficiency, then the law should not be rigid.

For the proposed four-day work week, the employer would have to provide three continuous days of paid leave to employees each week. The four-day work week implied that there would be a longer working hours, as the number of working days would be reduced. Chandra added, see there will be a maximum of 48 hours of work in a week. If someone works for eight hours a day then there will be six working days per week. If a company decides for 12 hour working per day for its employees, it means four-day working and three holidays

For a long time, there had been a debate raging around work-life balance in offices in India. In fact, with rising competition, many offices in India were working around the clock with multiple shifts to keep up with the demands of the markets. While the International Labour Organisation had set the standard for a 48-hour work week in the year 1919, analysts observed that the working hours in India often surpassed this standard on a daily and weekly basis.

The outcome of this scenario was that India was commonly referred to as the most overworked country in the world. According to experts, being overburdened at work could lead to a lack of concentration on the work. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that the global economy faced losses upward of US$1 trillion annually because of low productivity, driven by workplace anxiety. They cited a study that found that the human mind could focus on any given task for around 90-120 minutes. afterwards, a 20-30 minutes break was required to get the revitalisation to realise high-performance for the next task again.

In 2015, the University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden, conducted an experiment on the feasibility of a six-hour workday in Sweden. The experiment began in February 2015 with the hospital letting 80 nurses at a nursing home work six-hour shifts and giving them the eight-hour salaries, while another 80 nurses at another nursing home worked their normal eight hours. The result was that in the former group, the sick leave rate was half that of the other group. Moreover, the nurses in the former group were reportedly found to be happier and their patient care better.

In 2018, a New Zealand-based company called Perpetual Guardian conducted a trial study of a four-day work week. The result of the trial was that the employee sustained the same productivity level, and displayed progress in job satisfaction, teamwork, work life balance, and company loyalty. Employees also experienced a decrease in job stress from 45% to 38%. In 2019, Microsoft Corporations experiment on a four-day work week in its Japan office resulted in its productivity jumping by 40%.

Most analysts thought that the three free days in a four-day work week would motivate employees to meet productivity requirements. They thought that employees would plan to improve work habits and waste less of their work time. It was also believed that the extra day to recharge would boost an employees energy, while one less day to complete tasks in a week would drive employees to work more efficiently and strive for better time management. Scott Cawood, president and CEO of WorldatWork, said, currently we are seeing a premium on workplace flexibility and this program is a natural extension of this discussion.

People want to have a great life and do great work and smart employees are testing options like a four-day work week, 35-hour work weeks as a reward for optimal performance. Some analysts thought that a four-day work week will decrease each individual employees carbon footprint by removing commute pollution. Julia Pollak, a Labor Economist at employment marketplace ZipRecruiter, sayd, First, reducing the number of days employees are in every week translates to a substantial reduction in operating costs. Shortening the workweek can also lead to greater gender diversity in the workplace, as women candidates often choose industries that offer better hours and work/life balance.

Some analysts thought that a shorter workweek might suit employees whose projects had long lead times or were not centred on teamwork. They also pointed out that certain service industries required a 24/7 presence to serve their customers and that would make a four-day work week unfeasible. Judy Siguaw, Associate Dean of Research and Faculty Development at East Carolina Universitys College of Business, said, Customer needs may not be met if the office is only open four days a week. It is frustrating enough to have to wait across a two-day weekend for a company to respond. Now this would expand to a three-day weekend. Would that generate enough customer dissatisfaction that they defect?

However, there were others who thought that technological developments made it possible for employees to accomplish the same amount of work in less time, apart from ensuring that customers were supported. Some others thought that a 10-hour or 12-hour shift was a long one and not every person could have the energy for it. Moreover, several studies had shown that working long hours, like more than 9 hours a day, had a negative effect on the health of employees.

Some observers claim that the new rule of 4-day work week would increase investment and create more jobs. They thought that the new rule would appeal to millennials, who preferred easy and flexible employment terms.

The four-day work week had been experimented with by businesses and governments for decades, across the world. But it had never been widely adopted. Furthermore, industry experts observed that even in the current scenario, the four-day work week would be adopted only by a few companies. Rituparna Chakraborty, Co-founder and Executive Vice President of Indian based staffing company TeamLease Services, stated that there was a misapprehension that the Indian government was enforcing a four-day-work week, when it was just giving an option to the employers. She added, The government is not saying anything. It is merely giving an option to companies to get employees to work for extended hours.

4. Theoretical Part: Review of what is written in literature related to the project topic (i.e. motivation). The student is expected to give general theoretical description of the topic such as concept, importance, measurement, factors, and outcomes as related to the topic. 4. Theoretical Part: Review of what is written in literature related to the project topic (i.e. motivation). The student is expected to give general theoretical description of the topic such as concept, importance, measurement, factors, and outcomes as related to the topic