With Gandhi Jayanti falling on a Friday this year, most employees were looking forward to a long weekend. However, some companies added an extra day off making it a four-day long relaxing weekend for their remote workers.
Having spent over six months working from home, most employees have been yearning for time off. With remote working have blurred and almost erased the boundaries between personal and professional life, organisations have realised that their employees were stressed out, some even burned out.
While employees at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have been allowed to take today, October 5, off, in addition to the three-day long weekend. PepsiCo India gave a holiday to its employees on Thursday, October 1, so that they could take four days off work at a stretch.
While this was just a one off case, the debate on the benefits of a four-day work week has been on for some time now. Organisations are waking up to the fact that reduced work hours will do a world of good to employees’ well-being. Google has already started introducing a three-day weekend for its remote-working employees so that they are able to take a break and relax. The tech giant has already allowed its staff to work from home till summer 2021.
A global survey conducted two years back by Kronos, revealed that India topped the list of most hard working countries, with 69 per cent of its full-time employees willing to work five days a week even if they were given an option to work four days!
Earlier this year, Akhilesh Yadav, chief, Samajwadi Party, had suggested that the Uttar Pradesh government implement a four-day work week, which he felt would help control the spread of coronavirus instead of coming down with stricter lockdown on weekends.
