When French company boss Laurent de la Clergerie decided to let his staff work a four-day week, on the same pay as before,But a year on, his LDLC company selling consumer technology has increased annual turnover by 40%"In my mind it was obvious it would work, I had the intuition that this would bring only good."
As the world emerges from a global health crisis that prompted many people to re-evaluate their work-life balance,De la Clergerie says before he embarked on the change, he did the math.He worked out that even in the worst case scenario, the change would add to labor costs by at most $1.6 million per year."One could think that I managed to turn lead into gold. I don't think that's the case.
"We can be a capitalist and a socialist, one doesn't cancel the other out, and when I see this working today I would go further, if you socialist, it doesn't prevent you from being a capitalist, on the contrary it allows you to perform even better, that's what is happening today."He says the extra weekday off was a godsend."More time for my private life, more time to deal with all the things I need to do and above all more time to take care of the children.
France already has some of the world's most employee-friendly working practices, with a legal limit of 35 hours of work per week.And his company is not the only one.Consumer group Unilever launched a four-day week trial for local staff in New Zealand.Advertisement