2023-06-11 03:28:47
(Lyon) “Dare the four-day week! “, proclaims not a happy employee but a boss, Laurent de la Clergerie, cantor of a new organization of work favoring “the quality of life”.
Inspired by Microsoft’s experience in Japan, the founding president of the digital commerce group LDLC – a thousand employees – took the plunge in early 2021, adopting 32 hours over four days, with no reduction in salary.
The 52-year-old entrepreneur details all the benefits in a recent book Dare the four-day week!
“This work organization is the future,” he said in an interview with AFP. “When I see how everything works today in the box, how much I have changed people’s lives, who work more efficiently while being much less stressed, and having removed the notions of mental load, burnout , etc., I say to myself “if the atmosphere that there is at home multiplied in lots of clubs, overall, it is society with a capital S that would change!” “He ignites.
Initially, the shareholders “did not like it at all”. Investors tell him: “We didn’t know you were on the left!” “. Now, “it’s no longer a negative subject,” he says.
Some employees are also reluctant: they fear impossible schedules, unattainable objectives… Others tell him: “Not for me Laurent, I like my job too much”.
He has decided to hire to compensate and tells them, “to reassure them”.
Praise of disconnection
“It was only following I realized that in the end we were working better, that there was in fact no need to recruit. Because we change the way of life. And that changes everything.”
The transition was “smooth” and he quickly saw “the magic happen” with more rested, productive and creative employees: even though turnover jumped 40% in the year, working time fell by 8 .6% and the workforce increased by less than 4%. The absence rate goes from 6% in 2019 to just over 5% in 2021.
“I only had good surprises,” he says. Except on one point: “there is no more staff turnover at all”, which hampers prospects for progression, creating “frustration”.
Employees “nevertheless do not want to leave”, won over by the time saved in private life, doubled by savings in transport or childcare.
Another downside: LDLC has reduced the number of teleworking days from two to one, to maintain social ties and cohesion.
“It may have caused a little cringe but the three trade unions have signed”, underlines the secretary of the CSE Patrick Lusson.
“Overall, the employees are satisfied with the 32 hours over 4 days; no one wants to go back, even if some young people arriving on the labor market would like to work more to earn more, ”adds the elected CFDT.
The 4-day week, tested in just a handful of companies, is the dream of a majority of French people: 9 working people out of 10 would be tempted to join a company offering 4 days and 56% of working people place it in the top 3 of the benefits they would most like to receive, according to a recent Yougov survey of a sample of 1,010 employees for Talent.com.
Has the population lost the sense of “work value”?
“We confuse the value of work and ability! retorts Laurent de la Clergerie, who points to the densification of work in recent decades, often mentioned by economists and sociologists.
“A century ago, we carried out one project a year, when today we manage ten at a time, in constant competition, a telephone grafted to the arm, emails every three seconds, 25 Whatsapp groups and social networks . We are not able to maintain efficiency in the face of this amount of data. Our brain no longer follows. Whereas with an extra day of rest, we work better”.
The key, “is the organization of work”
PHOTO MARK LENNIHAN, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
The four-day week works if it is a reduction in working time accompanied by a change of organization to increase productivity, explains to AFP Pedro Gomes, professor of economics at Birkbeck (University of London), author of the book Friday is the new Saturday and coordinator of a pilot project in Portugal.
The four-day week is being tested in several countries. What are companies getting back?
More rested workers work better on other days, they are more creative. This frees up time for innovation, we don’t just think regarding work.
But this is not enough to make up for the loss of a day. The four-day week implies a change in the organization of work to be more productive.
The frequency and duration of meetings should be shortened. Sometimes it’s regarding adopting technologies. A chain of restaurants in Madrid has implemented the four-day week without hiring staff: customers order through an app to save the waiter time. Also very popular is the creation of blocks of time to separate teamwork, personal work, checking emails, social moments…
These changes are easier to make when switching to four days because employees know that the benefit will also be for them. A business leader told me that the change to four days had been his best exercise in cohesion.
The four-day week also reduces costs: the energy bill if you close on Friday, the absenteeism rate because workers are less often sick. In all projects, stress and exhaustion decreased significantly.
It is a solution to recruitment problems. At a British bank, applications have increased by 500%. It is an alternative to salary increases and a way for SMEs to compete with larger companies with higher salaries.
What are the principles of your pilot project in Portugal?
This concerns 39 voluntary companies from the private sector, mainly SMEs. A six-month project is reassuring, it allows you to share experiences…
Three key principles have been defined. First, no pay cut, it’s not part-time. Second, a reduction in the number of hours worked is not a compressed work week. In Portugal, the week is 40 hours, the reduction can be 32, 34 or 36 hours. We leave the decision to the company. Third, it is voluntary and reversible. It’s not a law or a workers’ right, it’s a managerial practice, and if it doesn’t work, we go back.
Our most important decision was not to give a grant in order to do a good evaluation. If we give money, even if successful, a skeptic will always attribute it to the grant.
Does the four-day week correspond to an economic evolution?
No economic law says that we must work six, five or four days, it is a choice of society between working time and leisure time.
The five-day week movement gained momentum when American Henry Ford implemented it in all his factories in 1926. He believed that workers would not need a car if they spent six days locked up in its factories.
The five days corresponded to the mass consumer economy of the XXe century. But for 30 years, everything has changed: technology, communication speed, demography, women’s work… and we continue to organize work in the same way. There is also a cultural shift in work-life balance following COVID-19, especially among young people.
The criticisms in the 1930s were the same as today once morest the four days: it’s impractical, wages will go down, everyone will become lazy… What is interesting is that these criticisms quickly disappeared following the implementation of the five days.
Fabrice Randoux, Agence France-Presse
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