The year 2018 began for our employees with a new personnel policy, introducing many new features – all, of course, for their benefit. Among other things, we switched from a 42.5-hour week to a 40-hour week. But why? And how did we manage to convince management to accept the "missing" 2.5 working hours per week, amounting to almost 900 fewer working hours per month across the entire company?

Aagof mindset

Of course, everyone was aware that if you look at the issue purely from a numbers perspective, the math doesn't add up. With this change, all employees are now essentially working only 94% of their previous hours for the same pay. Not bad, I'dag. However, when it comes to people, it's not always a simple calculation, especially when it comes to human productivity. Sure, you can run a machine 2.5 hours longer per week, and it will be 2.5 hours more productive, which in turn means you can bill the customer for 2.5 more hours and generate more revenue. But no one in this world works that way; no one becomes exactly that much more productive simply by having to sit in the office longer. And that's precisely the principle that led us to discuss the 40-hour week. Weagourselves what a person needs to be productive and efficient, to be creative, to develop new ideas and products, to beaginvolved in the company, and to think and act in the best interests of the company and the community. Theseagwere the first step in a mindset shift. Why? Because we started asking theseagin the first place.

Our statement, our goal

We wanted to make a statement with the introduction of the 40-hour week. It's incredibly important to us that the people who work for us every day are mentally and physically healthy. This requires a good work-life balance. It's important to us that everyone feels comfortable and therefore productive. Because, as everyone knows on a rational level: healthy andagemployees make happy customers, and happy customers generate more revenue, and so on and so forth. However, truly feeling and living this principle completely—the right mindset, in other words—requires a considerable amount of (HR) work.

We are aware that simply introducing a 40-hour week will not create a new world of work and will not "achieve" the health and satisfaction of employees, but it is a first step on a long road towards our vision – to begin shaping the world of tomorrow today.