Transitioning Management Staff to a 5-Day Workweek: Insights and Experiences Needed

Hi All,

I'm working with an FMCG company in the NCR region. We are a plant with 200-plus workmen and 35 management staff. We have been facing the problem of attrition in management for the last two years. It's a concern given the small size of the management staff that we have. To make our plant a better place to work, we want to move from working 6 days a week to 5 days a week, but only for the management staff. This change would mean that the management staff would have Saturday and Sunday off.

Can anybody share any similar experiences and insights to consider when transitioning to this new model?

Wonderful Thought...

Saturday productivity will be less when compared with the cost incurred. In fact, the same thing was applied in my organization 3 years ago, and it was an ultimate success. You have to do a thorough analysis.

Work hours weekly need to be calculated. Productivity has to be calculated. You can offer a 50-hour working week package with a minimum of 6-8 hours per day, or 45-50 hours in total.

Team motivation can be achieved by giving bonuses to people who achieve the required number of working hours. The team can go on a picnic if they achieve the designated workload package. The minimum period for this is 12 weeks.

Hi,

I am also looking into the feasibility of implementing such a 6-day to 5-day switch in our organization. Ours is a 24/7 IT/ITES company working in 3 shifts. I was wondering where I can get information regarding the mandatory requirements of leaves (Medical/Sick Leaves, Casual Leaves, Privilege Leave/Vacations, etc.) in a year. I did go to the state government site, where the labor policy is mentioned, but wanted to be sure if there are any other special provisions or laws to be considered by other authorities, like STPI, National Government, or if there is a specific IT/ITES labor policy, etc. It would be a great help to know what all the relevant laws/regulations are.

Regards, Chacko

We are looking at minimizing the impact on the bottom line of the organization while everybody in the organization gets 2 days off in a week. Till now, we were running on a fixed leave policy. Now, we are thinking of an experienced-based leave increment policy. Also, we are looking into a dedicated training day during the probation every week, efficiency improvement practices, and also looking into PCMM.

We have done a simulation of the schedule on a spreadsheet for a couple of months to see where the contingencies might occur, etc. The team size in our organization is varied, and this is one of the challenges we are facing - to arrange enough resources to make sure there is business continuity even in case of a crisis. For this, we are trying to make cross-functional working easier.