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Various large corporations are already relying on the new working model. In Switzerland, too, there are companies that start the weekend on Thursday.
Is the chronic overwork obsolete with the reduction in working hours – or is it even getting worse?
imago images/photothek
Internationally, various large corporations are already introducing the four-day week – on a trial basis, but also definitively.
But working one day less is also an issue in Switzerland.
Some smaller companies have been using the working model for several years – and have had good experiences with it.
To ensure that employees appear happier and more efficient at work, Panasonic and Unilever in New Zealand, for example, are introducing the four-day week – and this with full pay. According to the “SonntagsZeitung”, the performance and not the presence time is measured at the companies. That’s why old working models are going out of fashion.
And in Switzerland, too, reduced working hours are increasingly becoming an issue: Smaller companies are making the start. The Aargau graphics office A+O is said to have introduced the four-day week a few years ago. When the manager became a father. Since then, the weekend has been heralded on Thursday. “The employees like it, and the customers don’t have any problems with it either,” the “SonntagsZeitung” continues to quote him. In addition, the new freedom should promote creativity.
Initial difficulties have already subsided. Sales have dropped somewhat, but not 20 percent. The wages of the three employees should continue to correspond to the standards of other agencies. Only: They work one day more.
Large corporations face other problems
In large corporations, the introduction of the four-day week is more complex. The newspaper quotes work and organizational psychologist Gudela Grote as saying first that a decision must be made as to whether the regulation applies to everyone or only to creative people: “Additional compression can also cause stress and overtime.” In principle, however, the four-day week increases the competitiveness of companies.
The employers’ association is meanwhile rather skeptical as to whether the four-day week is possible and can be financed on a broad basis. Nevertheless, more and more companies in Switzerland are opting for more free time and less working time. The Swiss generally work less than they used to. In 1950, the average weekly working time was 47.7 hours. Today at six hours less.
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