Four-day working week pays off for Microsoft
In a country notorious for overwork, Microsoft Japan trialled a radical idea: working less. And it found that four-day weeks and other reforms both boosted sales and cut costs. The Japanese unit of the US IT giant closed its offices every Friday in August, giving all 2,300 full-time workers special leave. It also restricted meetings to a maximum of 30 minutes, and encouraged online chats as an alternative to face-to-face communications. The results were positive, with sales per employee rising almost 40 percent in August from a year earlier, electricity consumption down by a quarter and paper usage being cut in half. The firm said the trial showed “employees want to have a variety of ways of working” and that adopting the model more broadly could boost efficiency.
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