Unilever to extend four-day working week trial to Australia
Unilever is to extend its trial of a four-day working week to 500 employees in Australia after a successful 18-month pilot in New Zealand, becoming the largest company yet to offer a vote of confidence in the shorter schedule.
Placid Jover, chief talent officer at the UK-based maker of Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, said positive results from paying about 80 staff full salaries for four rather than five-day weeks in New Zealand had prompted the extension.
“We’ve had strong business performance, high engagement, people feeling happier, and time spent in meetings also coming down,” Jover said.
Jover said strong communication between line managers and staff had proved vital to the trial’s success. “The move doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and adjustment,” he said.
Depending on the results in Australia, Unilever will consider rolling out the four-day week to more of its 148,000 employees globally.
The four-day trial will proceed in conjunction with Unilever’s global hybrid working policy, so staff will be allowed to work two of their four days from home.
The campaign for a four-day week has gained traction, with large-scale trials observed by researchers taking place in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. But it faces challenges including enabling staff to genuinely detach from work on their day off.
Another question is the potential for two-tier systems where certain categories of staff are still required to work five days. Jover said Unilever would monitor relations between office-based staff on shorter weeks and manufacturing teams with unchanged schedules.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Judith Evans
