The move is expected to bring about greater employee satisfaction.
“I am introducing a four-day working week. I believe people need to have more time for themselves. If I believe in them, then they will (I guess) believe in me,” wrote entrepreneur from Zagreb Renata Šeperić Petak recently on Facebook, reports Večernji List on October 1, 2018.
Her move has caused great interest, and many wondered if her consulting company was in trouble and whether she was having problem with finding enough clients. “We are not in any trouble. Indeed, we have a lot of work,” said Šeperić Petak.
She added that she owned a small company and they had a stable inflow of clients all year long, but also that they are exposed to stress at the time when public tenders are announced and when applications for projects are due.
“That happens almost every month or even week. There are turbulences in the amount of work we need to do, and that is caused by deadlines. Since I am the oldest in the company, watching my young colleagues I think people need to rest and have more time for themselves. We did not do anything other people cannot do, we just created a different weekly schedule,” said Šeperić Petak.
The practice has already been tested in New Zealand, where academic research has confirmed that such schedules improve work and lead to better results, as well as to greater employee satisfaction.
The British TUC, a trade union which covers 5.5 million workers, has formulated it as its new goal – what once was a battle for an eight-hour workday, now is a fight to work from Monday to Thursday.
Šeperić Petak will first conduct a six-month experiment in which only one employee will work four days a week. If it turns out to be a good solution, she is ready to organize her entire company with a four-day workweek.
Translated from Večernji List (reported by Robert Jurišić).
