*Per Paulo Oliveira
The four-day work week will be tested in Brazil from November. The project, led by Reconnect Happiness at Work, in partnership with 4 Day Week Global and Boston College, selected 20 companies that will reduce working hours to 32 hours by May 2024. The idea is to use the “100 – 80 – logic 100“, which means 100% of salary, 80% of time and 100% of productivity.
Companies participating in the initiative have been receiving guidance and training since June. It is worth highlighting that it is not something implemented instantly, planning is needed to restructure processes, communication, time management and metrics. Therefore, HR is a key player in making the four-day journey successful in a company. To achieve this, the sector needs to have solutions that automate routines and provide indicators and reports easily.
The project has already been tested in several countries such as Belgium, Iceland, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom. According to Reconnect Happiness at Work, many companies have reported reduced absenteeism. But for this to be evaluated effectively, having an HR management system makes a big difference, as it is possible to easily access this data and generate reports to measure it.
The project puts people at the center of decision-making, which is why HR must monitor and analyze the impacts of the new journey on employees. Assessing productivity and engagement levels in the four-day week test is critical. For this to be possible, it is essential that routine and manual tasks are automated, and human resources professionals can focus on these assessments and strategies.
To better understand how the new model is impacting employees' daily lives, HR can apply research. In this sense, the questionnaires must be well structured so that the results assertively show how the experience is going. In other words, technology here is also essential, as a survey like this would be completely unfeasible manually.
It is also true that there will be many doubts from employees, and having assertive communication will make all the difference. Having a portal that allows you to share information with employees brings more security and clarity during this process. Furthermore, it encourages more autonomy for contractors, who can make requests, consult and update data, and even automatically generate statements.
As the world continues to evolve rapidly, the traditional work model is losing ground, whether to remote, hybrid formats and now four-day weeks. HR is at the center of these changes and to ensure they are implemented successfully, ensuring productivity and a good employee experience, it is essential to rely on technology.
*Paulo Oliveira, Marketing Manager at Apdata
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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