Following the recent call to end the culture of overworking, Microsoft Inc, tried the four-day workweek system to implement it on the Japan branch - and the result is amazing.
The program, which was called "Work Life Choice Challenge", was conducted on the whole month of August. It involved closing the offices every Friday to give employees an extra day-off. The company claimed that, compared to the previous year at the same time span, the sales - which served as the basis of productivity - increased by at least 40 percent even after a huge chunk of work time was cut off.
Another radical changes that happened in the program includes limiting the time spent on meetings up to 30 minutes only. Employees were encouraged to utilize online messaging apps produced by Microsoft, instead of sitting down together in a conference room.
Since offices were closed by an extra day, the company also saved from utility expenses.
For future endeavors, Microsoft will survey its 2,280 employees to ask for more ideas to improve their work-life balance. By doing so, the company believed that the workforce's efficiency will be improved.
The Culture of Overworking
A Japanese government study found out that one out of five Japanese salarymen are overworking themselves to death.
This culture of overworking has been going on even as early as the 1970s, when the country's economy was booming. But as the growth increased rapidly, employees were suddenly dropping dead. It was on the same era that the term for this deadly norm--karoshi, which means death from overwork--was coined.
Overworked employees usually suffered from stress-related illness or depression.
A decade later, karoshi, which is sometimes referred as salarymen culture, became recognized as a serious social issue by lawyers and citizen groups. Yet the government officially recognized it as such in 2014 through a law that asks for better working conditions. And to add salt to the injury, companies were not forced to comply.
Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo, claimed that the country denied the existence of this problem because they think it is normal for employees to prioritize their companies over their well-being.
But there's a hope...
On the Christmas of 2015, a female staff from Japanese advertising giant Dentsu committed suicide after she was forced to take excessive overtime, amounting to 105 hours in a month. This incident sparked global outrage on the Japanese salarymen culture.
Another female staff, a 31-year old political reporter, suffered from a heart attack while holding her cellphone. Like the woman from Dentsu, she was also punished with overtime, with a total of 159 hours in one month.
Because of this, the Japanese government reformed the existing labor law. From previous unlimited overtime, it was capped to a maximum of 45 hours per month and 360 hours per year.
However, the law was criticized due to some questionable exemptions like extending the limit to 100 hours during busy months. Highly-skilled workers are not protected by the law. Instead, they will be granted an annual salary rate of 10.75 million yen or around $95,000.
The law has taken effect on large employers since April 2019. Then, on the following year of the same month, small and mid-sized employers are expected to comply.
The government also encouraged workers to leave early every last Friday of the month through a campaign called "Premium Friday".