Unilever New Zealand tests four-day workweek



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On Tuesday, distributor of Lipton tea, Dove soap and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream announced that it would test shorter work schedules for all of its employees in New Zealand, letting them decide which four days they prefer to work each. week.

The trial begins this month and lasts for a year. The consumer giant has 81 staff members nationwide, who will be allowed to work compressed schedules with full pay as the Sydney University of Technology in Australia helps track their progress.

Unilever said if all goes well, the company will consider changing its workflow on a larger scale.

“We hope the trial will enable Unilever to be the first global company to adopt ways of working that deliver tangible benefits for people and businesses,” said Nick Bangs, Managing Director of Unilever New Zealand, in a press release.

“This is an exciting time for our team and a validation of the catalytic role Covid-19 has played in disrupting standard work practices.

Unilever is not the first company to adopt this practice in New Zealand. In 2018, local company Perpetual Guardian, which helps clients manage their wills and estates, also hosted a widely cited two-month trial of the concept. The company said it was so successful that they later decided to make it permanent.

Bangs said his team drew on the findings of this case study and began to “believe the old ways of working were out of date.”

Even New Zealand leader Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern raised the idea as an idea that could help the economy recover from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

In May, Ardern shared the suggestion while discussing ways to revive domestic tourism in his country. She said if companies had their own discretion in making such decisions, the idea had merit in that it could give domestic travelers “some flexibility in terms of travel and time off.”

Large companies elsewhere are also starting to join the trend. Last year, Microsoft (MSFT)The Japan team in Japan experimented with closing their offices every Friday in August and giving all employees an extra day off each week.
Microsoft tried a 4-day work week in Japan.  Productivity jumped 40%

The results are promising: While time spent at work has been drastically reduced, productivity – measured by sales per employee – has increased by almost 40% compared to the same period a year earlier, the company said. .

As a result, Microsoft announced that it would follow up on another experiment in Japan and also asked other companies to join the initiative.

The four-day workweeks were touted as a way to improve work-life balance. Some companies have recently started trying it out to combat the burnout caused by the challenges of working during the pandemic.
Other companies are turning to remote working for similar reasons. Japanese company Nomura Holdings said on Tuesday it plans to introduce a new arrangement, which would allow workers to spend up to 60% of their time away from the office each month.

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