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Greece has simply launched a six-day workweek coverage, efficient July 1st, 2024, aimed toward enhancing productiveness and combating its persistent unemployment points. As of Might 2024, Greece’s unemployment price stands at 10.6%, exhibiting a decline from earlier years however nonetheless reflecting important financial challenges. The query for me stays whether or not one of the best ways to beat these challenges and optimize a working populace is by extending the workweek.
Though early into its life, the brand new coverage has sparked widespread debate. Will Greece see a lift in productiveness and enhance its financial situations, or does this selection have the next likelihood of stagnating the workforce additional and damaging work ethic and morale? Let’s discover each side of the coin.
The financial context
So, why is Greece able requiring such a drastic change? The reply is pretty easy — Greece has confronted substantial financial hardships over the previous decade, notably because the debt disaster within the early 2010s, which noticed unemployment charges soar to just about 28% in 2013.
Clearly unsustainable, Greece has performed an excellent job bringing the unemployment price again right down to 10.6%, and this means restoration. Nonetheless, it is all relative. Actually, 10.6% stays one of many highest within the Eurozone. Greece’s authorities wanted to do extra, and this choice to implement a six-day workweek was due to this fact pushed by a must stimulate financial exercise and scale back joblessness.
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Execs of the six-day workweek
The primary risk is that the six-day workweek may result in larger general output. After all, by growing the variety of workdays, companies may obtain extra constant productiveness and scale back downtime. Companies maximize the utilization of their assets in a setup like this, each fiscally and personally. Nonetheless, whereas this further utilization may drive financial progress and a discount in unemployment, you might be additionally extra prone to expertise burnout within the crew and drop morale. What’s the affect of this? A lower in productiveness.
There are numerous items to this puzzle. Some sectors, notably these reliant on steady operations, may profit from the prolonged workweek. Extra workdays can translate to extra manufacturing and buyer engagement for industries like manufacturing and providers, which could assist companies get better sooner in a nonetheless fragile economic system.
Greece is seemingly clued up on this, as the brand new regulation will solely be legitimate for workers of personal companies and manufacturing vegetation that function 24 hours a day, together with sure retail and agricultural staff.
Moreover, the regulation (particularly Legislation 5053/2023), which was handed by parliament on the again finish of 2023, clarifies that the worker’s further day/hours are capped at 8 hours. Employers may also determine whether or not a employee ought to are available in and work for this sixth day. There may be flexibility, which might be crucial to the tactic’s success. The incentives are additionally fairly important — workers can be paid 40% extra time for the wages masking the additional time.
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Downsides and options
Regardless of these potential advantages, it most undoubtedly isn’t assured to be all sunshine and rainbows for Greece. Loads of analysis and sensible expertise means that extending the workweek may not be the simplest technique for enhancing productiveness.
Longer working hours can result in worker burnout, decreased job satisfaction, and decrease general productiveness in the long run. A 2014 research by Stanford College discovered that productiveness per hour declines considerably when the workweek exceeds 50 hours and drops off so sharply after 55 hours that there is no such thing as a level in working anymore.
Moreover, the standard of labor can endure when workers are overworked. Artistic and cognitive duties, that are essential in lots of trendy industries, are sometimes higher carried out with enough relaxation and a balanced work-life schedule.
Clearly, all of us have totally different working kinds, however the present shift in direction of distant and asynchronous work fashions advantages the workforce usually. Flexibility can enhance productiveness and worker well-being, as long as you select your workers fastidiously.
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Embracing trendy work practices
To guide on from that final level, we all know that Greece can’t select its workers, and so it doesn’t have the luxurious of pinpointing particular industries or working strategies for particular personnel. Subsequently, it is smart to implement a reasonably broad ‘repair,’ even when it’s not all-inclusive.
What I’m wondering, although, is whether or not they may benefit extra from embracing trendy work practices that concentrate on flexibility, distant work, and asynchronous communication as methods to enhance output.
At Bubbles, we facilitate asynchronous communication and alter how colleagues have digital conferences. If constructing and utilizing Bubbles has taught me something, it is that updates, suggestions, and concepts don’t must be given inside the identical four-wall boundary. Actually, a faster, extra environment friendly approach entails being aside and being extra versatile.
Research have proven that dedication to asynchronous communication and collaboration has diminished the quantity of real-time conferences groups have by as much as 38%. Who is aware of what may occur when it comes to output if Greece had been to focus and put money into the effectivity of the present 40-hour workweek as an alternative of holding this largely related whereas solely boosting the period of time individuals spend doing it.
To supply some constructive context to this rationale, we are able to have a look at firms like Atlassian and Slack, which have reported larger worker satisfaction and productiveness by minimizing conferences and specializing in deliverables somewhat than hours labored.
I can perceive this concept totally, however whether or not the execution is appropriate is one other matter. Whereas the choice is smart inside Greece’s financial context, it’s essential to think about the potential long-term impacts on worker well-being and productiveness and, as such, the options for optimizing the present format of Greek working tradition and putting a steadiness between financial progress and morale.
