Seeking Advice on Proposing Saturday Offs: How Can I Make My Case Stronger?

Dear HR Professionals,

I am working in a telecom company with 300+ employees. Our working hours are from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Apart from Sundays as holidays, the first and last Saturdays of the month are off, and the rest are working days. I want to prepare a proposal to present to the Board of Directors so that Saturdays are considered as days off.

I have developed a plan where we can increase working hours by one extra hour. I am attaching the details of the work plan here. Kindly take a look at it and suggest what else I can add to make this proposal more acceptable.

Additionally, I am working on reducing administrative costs on Saturdays, which will be decreased if Saturdays are granted off. Please provide me with your valuable ideas so that I can achieve this goal.

Regards,
Mehvi

Dear Mehvi,

Before commenting on your queries, please answer the following questions:

1) Why do you need to change your office working hours?
2) Who is deciding upon this change and why?
3) Why have you added 1 hour extra, and why not some other figures like 1/2 hour?
4) Is it absolutely necessary to stick to fixed working hours? (Overtime payment)
5) What are the tangible benefits of the change?

If you can answer the above, then you will be able to convince and decide with your management on the issue. Lastly, check with your State's Shop and Establishment Inspectors/consultants who deal with S&E regarding the legality of the timing.

Please revert back if necessary.

Warm Regards,
SC

Hello, my dear Citeian,

I am also working in a telecom organization in Pakistan. I am facing the same problem, especially with the sales and marketing staff because they are working 7 days a week. Kindly, if you receive any useful information, please update me.

Navaid
00923212415407

Hi Dear,

Now, you are working 8 hours per day. Make it 9 hours working per day so that you can have Saturday as a holiday. Additionally, once a quarter on any Saturday, make it a working day to compensate for the hours.

RaGubady K

Introducing a 5-Day Work Week: A Win-Win Situation

I have gone through the attached spreadsheet, and this alone is not sufficient. You can prepare a PowerPoint presentation giving a detailed explanation of each scenario. Use the data prepared in your Excel and paste them in the PPT. Do emphasize the following points:

• Calculate the administrative and maintenance cost per day (including electricity, transport, support, and other functions required for your operation) and project the same as potential savings (4 times per month).

• Stretching an hour will increase productivity compared to starting a new day as it reduces cooling-off time, unproductive discussions, and breaks.

• With efficient planning, task allocation, and progress tracking will be easy.

• Employees benefit from having an extra day at their disposal. This will directly result in increased employee satisfaction, thereby reducing attrition and increasing productivity.

• Check the labor laws applicable to your industry/line of business in your country and emphasize that.

P.S. Most important: Please do one round of spell check before you circulate the document and ensure that you are communicating what you intend.

Hope this is useful to you.

Regards,
Murali

I am working in an organization where we are already giving 9:30 hours per day and no Saturday off. No festival. What should I do and how to convey my message to HR in a convincing way? Please tell me.

I am not very sure if increasing the number of hours actually increases productivity. People will extend their work to fill in the time. Prepare your presentation based on Murali's suggestions. Also, do you have a productivity reporting system that can be consolidated for a month? Use that as a base to compare productivity with alternate Saturdays and all Saturdays off. Maybe you can offer a trial month or two.

Most importantly, you have to promote it as an employee motivation tool since the telecom industry is known to have high attrition.

Regards,
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