Microsoft Japan Software Corp. said that the experience of reducing the number of work days to only four per week led to an increase in sales rate achieved by the employee by 40 percent compared to the same month last year.
According to Bloomberg, the `` Work and Life Option Challenge for Summer 2019 '' initiative included full-time employees on paid five-day Fridays during August, reducing meetings to a maximum of 30 minutes, and encouraging chat. Online rather than direct dialogues between employees.
Ninety-two percent of employees who participated in the experiment expressed satisfaction with the idea of working four days a week, the company said in a statement on its website on October 31.
Japan is working to reduce its long working hours, while facing a shortage of labor and an increase in the average age of its population.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to make working conditions more flexible and reduce overtime have met with mixed reactions.
Bloomberg said Microsoft's Japan initiative last summer reduced electricity consumption by 23 percent and printed paper by 59 percent compared with August 2018.
Microsoft plans to conduct another similar experiment next winter, where employees will not get paid for the holiday, but will be encouraged to take holidays on their own initiative "in a more flexible and intelligent."