Transitioning to a 5-Day Workweek: How Can We Make It Work for Everyone?

Proposal for Transitioning to a 5-Day Workweek

I am working in the HR Department of a Turnkey Project-based company where we have a 6-day work culture, with our weekly off falling on Sundays. Recently, I have proposed transitioning to a 5-day work culture to provide all our employees with weekends off on Saturdays and Sundays.

My management has requested a detailed report on this proposal, seeking insights into the advantages and disadvantages of moving to a 5-day workweek. Given that we are a Plant Manufacturing company with a significant portion of our engineers working on-site, it is crucial that this change is feasible for both our office staff and site engineers. I am currently in the process of preparing this report, and I would appreciate it if all of you could share your views and ideas on this matter.

Thanks & Regards,
Sweety

You can explain the benefits and disadvantages as follows:

Advantages:

- Low attrition rate (a very important point)
- Work-life balance
- Employees are the biggest asset that contributes to revenue and productivity, so it is essential to keep them happy.

Disadvantages:

The disadvantage is when management does not have a good approach towards employee welfare. However, if management does not approve, you can suggest increasing the daily working hours by 1 hour, with both Saturday and Sunday as holidays.

Regards,
Sonali

Definitely add what Sonali suggested about increasing the hours of work every day so that Saturdays and Sundays will be off. Since engineers are on-site, I think they may require to alternate their weekend offs. I don't know your industry/business, but would suggest you also show the management how the leaves will be tracked, what kind of roster format you will create, what changes will be there in the policy, how the balances will be monitored. From the management's viewpoint, they want assurance that production will not go down.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Ryan

Thank you, Sonali and Ryan, for your valuable suggestions. Our normal office working hours are 9 am to 6 pm. However, many employees from the design engineering and administration departments often need to stay in the office beyond working hours, requiring them to submit extra work reports. I believe implementing a 5-day work week could be beneficial. Even though they may need to remain in the office until 8 pm, this change could potentially increase productivity. Please share any additional suggestions you may have.

Regards

Adding to Sonali and Ryan's inputs, it may also reduce costs on account of electricity consumption, telephone calls, and fuel savings if the company provides transport to employees. There are also savings on expenses for housekeeping staff if outsourced, as well as savings on account of transport and other miscellaneous expenses for the employees, which they would not have incurred but for attending the office on Saturday. This leaves them with better take-home pay and thus more satisfied employees. These are some advantages that occurred to me.

Regards,
B. Saikumar

You have mentioned that, "Actually, our normal office working hours are 9 am to 6 pm, but still many design engineering and admin department employees need to wait in the office after the working hours, so they are supposed to give extra work reports. So I thought this will be feasible so that even though they are required to wait in the office till 8 pm, they can be more productive if we follow a 5-day work culture."

Attribution: https://www.citehr.com/484661-5-days...#ixzz2tHWWO6YW

What you have described is a working necessity, which need not be managed by creating or modifying a policy. Rather, what you could do is study the process to understand why they have to give extra reports. Look at options like automation or process re-engineering.

You can still change to a 5-day week, but don't link it to this reason. It doesn't make sense.

Let me know if you would like to discuss this offline further.

Regards,
Ryan

Well, going by the nature of business, viz Turnkey Projects, the type of business calls for a very deadline-centric culture. There is a schedule, and there are agencies that decide and affect the scope, etc.

Project environments have significant workload fluctuations, and they also have huge risks in staffing (attrition can kill the project at times).

I don't see a 5-day workweek making any sense there. The site is typically working 7 days a week. So, your office needs to support them too. There are a lot of uncertainties that need to be covered. Typically, projects run behind schedule, and you will see your policy going for a toss.

Please note that such a work schedule requires a very well-planned and well-controlled workplace. Most aren't. Depending on the clients and contractors, I can assure you that things are way beyond your normal span of control, and they have significant financial and legal ramifications.

So, I think for your business, a 6-day workweek is ideal. If you are adequately staffed, you might need to keep some folks on a 'rota' basis on the 6th day.

My 2 cents...