Is a 4-Day Work Week Feasible in India?

–Kakali Das |

4 major labour codes have been passed by Parliament and these envision squeezing down 44 different codes into 4 labour codes. The labour secretary has revealed that one of the points that are being mulled is the possibility of a 4-day work week. He says that there are companies who are keen on these options. The overall limit to a work week in Indian law currently is 48 hours and this could be split over 5 days or 6 days a week. Now as per these new codes there can be an option of 4 days a week. What this means is that the work day then can be extended up to 12 hours. The definition of a work day doesn’t include the travel times or the breaks the employees take for lunch or tea etc. Will this be feasible in a country as ours? Whether the 48-hour work days will actually be implemented in true spirit, time will tell. Post Covid-19, a lot of people have started working from home flexibly and continuing work hours have become the norm, Will it be easy to really see how this pans out? Will companies be interested/ is it in favour of employees at the end of the day?

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The labour law by the Union Ministry of Labour and Employmentwill make way for a three-day weekend, but will keep the working hours at 48 hours a week, meaning the employees then might be subject to longer working days i.e. 12 hour shift as opposed to an 8-hour shift. The general standard according to the labour law is 48 regular hours of work per week with a maximum of 8 hours per day, meaning 6 days of working for 8 hours a day. If the 4-day work week law gets implemented, employees would be working for 12 hours per day, which would indeed be voluntary and companies would be able to choose however they want to and employees would too be provided with an option in what we understand.

On being asked whether the companies are currently prepared for a 4-day work week,Aditya Narayan Mishra, Director and CEO of CIEL HR services said, “No employers are already ready for it; they would, indeed, require doing a lot of work around figuring out on how they would convert 8-hour shifts to 12-hour. Some employees might be interested in doing it, while some might not. The proposed law doesn’t precisely mandate any information further. The white collared employees or the employees in managerial roleswon’t bebenefited from the 4-day a week formula, since their works are filled the entire day and there is very less distinction between work and home. It would indeed bring a lot of flexibility to the employers and some to employees.”

For instance, if a person is very passionate about pursuing a particular hobby such as, singing, photography, or a writer writing a book etc. and are committed to their hobbies, this 4-day work a week formula would help him/her wrap their work up and do something productive in the 3-day-at-a-stretch weekend.But there are less employees relatively who engages in such hobbies in India apart from their professional jobs. If an employer asks an employee to stretch beyond 8 hours, it signifies doing over time, and there are restrictions about the number of overtime hours an employee can engage in with an extra payment that the organisation is bound to make for the extra number of hours at a higher rate than usual. For instance, in a retail company or outlet, or the hospitality or entertainment industry, if it’s a 12-hour work day it will help the company per se, because they roster their people in such a way that the employees can work for 4 days and 12 hours per day. The major concern stays about the employee productivity. What’s the amount of concentration that the employees can give if the number of hours are too long? In a research conducted by inc.com suggests that in an eight-hour day, the average worker is only productive for two hours and 53 minutes, which showed that even though it’s an 8-hour shift, people hardly work for 3 hours affectively. The number of hours doesn’t make sense, since the productivity comes in only for 3-4 hours depending on the kind of work one does.If one’s working in a production facility and require lifting heavy items from one floor to the other, even if there are certain amount of breaks given for the physical and motor skills to be in place, will everybody be able to work productively for 12 hours even with the amount of breaks in between? It’s easy for the company to create a roster of 12 hours but will the employees be able to serve it? The implementation, thus, will be a challenge.

Many employees feel that this situation will take at least five years for companies to actually begin implementing. But I think, it isn’t going to take that long, because in the time of the pandemic the manufacturing industry in many states of India have actually shifted to 12-hour shifts and the labour offices have permitted of it, though they have an 8-hour shift policy, since they were incurring heavy expenditure on sanitizer, employee transportation etc. There have been many experiments in the last few months which have run successfully with 12-hour shifts; it has worked well for them. However, every organisation hasn’t tried it. I think it would take about 6-12 months of time for a new equilibrium to be established.