[News] 71% of the employees consulted prefer the four-day work week

[SougarLord]

 

71% of Spanish employees prefer a reduced workday of four days, according to a survey by Hays, one of the main human resources companies.

 

It should be remembered that the Government is studying the implementation of the four-day work week in some companies as a test. For this pilot plan it has budgeted 50 million euros.

 

However, when asked about the main changes to improve work-life balance, the reduction of the working day (to four working days or hours) only 71% of the employees consulted. 34% emphasize that the current conciliation is already good, while 20% ask for more flexibility and 18% request more teleworking.

 

Salvador Sicart, director of Hays Response and Hays IT Services in Spain, points out that “the most significant thing is when he asks what could be done to improve work-life balance. There we see that reducing working hours is one more measure, but not the main one ».

 

"There is a favorable trend towards this initiative, but it is also the typical idea that when it starts it seems good but later it is not so good when the benefits and counterparts are analyzed well," he adds.

 

Among the reasons why the majority of employees who are in favor of implementing the four-day working day, the main one is the improvement of worker motivation (54%). It is also important to highlight the improvement in productivity (35%).

On the other hand, the factors that lead 29% of employees to negatively assess this measure are: having more stress for working fewer hours (29%), being less productive (28%), and having worse results for working fewer hours ( 19%).

 

Sicart comments that “in the current environment in which there are more and more variable components in salaries, perhaps there are employees who with this type of measures have it more difficult to achieve their objectives. It is a 'work in progress' measure, but we have to be aware that it will not be able to please everyone. If the conciliation is favored more, perhaps it affects the salary and the results, so the companies that adopt it will have to prioritize which problem they want to solve ”, he highlights.