Sounds like a dream job?
Well, a German consulting firm is doing just that with its employees, and the results are off the charts.
Half day, errday!
Business website Wall Street Journal recently highlighted the German firm Rheingans Digital Enabler and its five-hour work day practice.
The company’s managing director Lasse Rheingans told the website that his employees start work at 8am every day, and they are allowed to go home at 1pm.
Despite working only five hours a day and a total of 25 hours a week, Rheingans revealed that his employees are taking home the same salaries and entitled to the same number of annual leave days as before.
However, there’s a catch.
During those five hours, employees should not use their phones and engage in small talks.
Also, employees are only allowed to check their e-mails twice a day, and only schedule 15 minutes meetings.
Wait, that's it? We could so do that.
However, Rheingans told Wall Street Journal that the implementation had some hiccups, as employees were pressured to produce the same amount of work within a shorter time frame.
“In my experience, there is nothing to gain from working longer.
“In software development, for example, you end up making more mistakes, you have to go back over everything and in the end you invest more time than would have if you’d worked shorter hours and focused harder,” he was quoted as saying.
Rheingans told the website that even though some of his employees do stay back after 1pm to finish off some work, his clients are slowly adjusting to the firm's working arrangements.
Seeing results
Despite the minor setbacks, Rehingans revealed that he found the experiment yields good results, as his employees are happy and his clients get better quality work.
Not only that, the employees can also use the spare time to engage in personal hobbies, while Rheingans also admitted that he gets to spend more time with his children.
To top it all off, the company reportedly turned a profit in 2018, when the trial was in place.
Now, the company implements a five-hour work day in summer months.
BRB, we're updating our resume right now.