Unilever To Test Four-Day Working Week In New Zealand
UNILEVER – Unilever recently said that it will try out a four-day working week for all its employees in New Zealand.
The global consumer goods giant said that all 81 staff members at its offices across the country will be able to participate in the said trial, which is set to begin next week and will run for 12 months until December 2021, according to a report from Reuters.
The employees will still be paid for five days, albeit workig for four.
The giant’s New Zealand managing director Nick Bangs said that the aim was to change the way work is done rather than increasing the working hours on four days.
“If we end up in a situation where the team is working four extended days then we miss the point of this,”
“We don’t want our team to have really long days, but to bring material change in the way they work.”
The company said that it will assess the outcome of the said move after 12 months, adding that it will look at how it could work for the rest of its 155,000 employees globally.
“It’s very much an experiment. We have made no commitments beyond 12 months and beyond New Zealand. But we think there will be some good learning we can gather in this time,”
All the employees in New Zealand are in sales, distribution and marketing, based on the report.
The shorter working week has been debated in the country for a while with Perpetual Guardian, an estate planning firm, making headlines last year for pioneering the idea and announced that it produced big productivity increases.
The idea gained momentum when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern urged firms to try out four-day weeks to offer flexibility to employees amid COVID-19. Ardern added that this may help boost domestic tourism while international borders remained shut.
“When the prime minister talked about it in the context of what the future of work would look like, that was encouragement for us,”
The New Zealand government, however, has not considered the idea on board in its offices yet.
What do you think of this report? How will you react to this? Let us know more about it in the comments below.
READ ALSO: Metro Manila Police Chief Says Minors in GCQ Areas Still Banned in Malls
Check out our latest news at philnews.ph or in our following social media pages
Facebook: /PhilNews
Twitter: @PhilNews247
Instagram: @philnewsph