Work less to work better? Since the health crisis, experiments around the four-day week have multiplied in Europe. In France, a handful of companies have taken the plunge in recent months or even years. A pioneer in this field, the construction materials recycling specialist Yprema adopted this mode of organization in 1997, encouraged by the Robien law and its fee waivers granted to companies in exchange for reduced working hours for their employees to recruit or avoid a layoff plan.
25 years later, Yprema continues to live to the rhythm of the four-day week. A model that allows you to gain “one month a year of more productivity”, estimates the group on its website. Despite this positive feedback, companies have long been reluctant to imitate the construction company, until the Covid-19 pandemic shakes some certainties.
LDLC moves to 32 hours per week
The health crisis seems to have acted as a trigger for a large part of the French companies that today follow this organizational model. Inspired by the example of Microsoft in Japan, LDLC launched in January 2021. Unlike Yprema, which concentrates 35 hours of work per week over four days, the online IT and digital equipment vendor moved to 32 hours per week. week, paid 35.
The leaders of the Lyon team have since chained media interventions to testify to the benefits of the four-day week. A year after its constitution, Laurent de la Clergerie himself, president of LDLC, listed them in a text published on Linkedin: “Result: 6% growth, 20% increase in profits and a balance between hiring and negative departures” .
“No loss of efficiency… In fact, it’s even worse than that if we go into the details. Noting from the beginning that the effects were super effective (…) and that it didn’t cost the company anything or even brought us money, we reassessed the salaries in the 2021 NAOs by an average of 10% for low salaries”, he explained.
If Laurent de la Clergerie says he is aware that this model cannot be applied “everywhere”, his success within LDLC “explains that in the end, contrary to what we constantly hear, we can work less time… and be much more”. productive, just because mentally you are much less fatigued”. côté pour ses enfants!”, soulignait encore directed him three months ago.
Wednesday or Friday off in Elmy
More than the health crisis, it was the energy crisis that led the green electricity provider Elmy to introduce a 4-day work week last September for its 80 employees. Sky-high prices in the energy market “created a lot of turmoil internally. We wanted to send a strong signal to our teams to keep them,” Camille Darde, Elmy’s head of human resources, tells BFM Business. But the idea did not come to him overnight: “Personally, the four-day week had been questioning me for a long time. I’ve been wondering about the pace of work we’ve been doing for a long time. I followed the experiments.
Therefore, for three months now, Elmy’s teams have been working four days a week at a rate of 35 hours a week for executives (instead of 39) who represent 90% of the workforce, and 32 hours for non-executives (instead of 39). of 35). The additional rest day was set on Wednesday or Friday: “Each team defined their restrictions and their schedule and each employee expressed his desire to have Wednesday or Friday as his day. off. If there was no agreement (that would allow the service to continue working correctly on Wednesdays or Fridays), we proceeded by lottery. But, in general, it was done with good intelligence”, says Camille Darde.
And the first evaluation is already satisfactory: “We will perpetuate ourselves. We will not go backwards. Everyone sees the positive effects. We just have to make a few more adjustments,” explains the DDH. It must be said that this profound organizational change may alter the balance of certain services. If the four-day week “works very well within certain teams that already had a fairly agile operation, it is more complicated for activities with commercial or external relations issues. For certain positions it is not always possible “To be absent on Wednesday or Friday . You need flexibility. But we had foreseen it”, acknowledges Camille Darde.
“Heavier Days”
In the medium term, he has no doubt that this system will work fully in all departments. With the consequent productivity effect: “Cla has already been tested. (…) By granting that confidence to employees” with an extra day off “they feel indebted”, says Elmy’s human resources director.
Questioned upstream about the implementation of this new model, the employees of the electric company responded positively almost unanimously. Although “at the beginning there was stress”, some feared “having to do more work in four days, instead of five. We reassured ourselves a lot by saying that we would hire if necessary”, continues Camille Dardé. In the end, it was not necessary. Although today the days are a little denser, but having a day off extra is such comfort, which allows you to rest, gain in well-being ”, he adds.
The four-day week, an attractiveness tool
While recruitment difficulties have never been greater in France, the implementation of the four-day week is becoming almost a necessity for companies that are losing their appeal. This is the case of the Senave carpentry in Roncq (North), where employees now work “the same time for four days instead of five, without loss of salary as well”, says manager Morgan Tognarini.
“We had a lot of trouble recruiting on our field, so we had to put the advantages on our side. (…) We have a job that is relatively physical, so having three days off during the week is more interesting than two”, the head of this SME also points out, which has not suffered a drop in activity since the transition to the week of 4 days.
Supporting figures, Camille Darde confirms this “attractive effect” with a doubling of the number of applications received “for certain positions” as Elmy reduced the working time of its employees.
The “four-day brooding week” at KPMG
The observation is the same at KPMG France, where the four-day week is as much a measure of employee “retention” as it is “attractiveness,” the company tells BFM Business. Even if the 10,000 employees of the audit and consulting services group cannot benefit from it, since the system established on October 1 is here reserved for young parents.
A measure developed by KPMG France’s Next Gen Committee launched in June 2021 in connection with the group’s change of status to become a “mission-based company”. Comprised of a dozen young people from all walks of life at KPMG, the Next Gen committee proposed the “four-day parenting week” after conducting an internal survey to identify employee needs.
Specifically, workers who have just had a child have the possibility of requesting a part-time job at 80% paid at 100% (that is, 4 days out of 5) for a maximum period of six months. “Since October 1, 150 people have applied to benefit from this measure. It is a great success and it is going well in terms of organization,” says one of KPMG France.
If it’s “a bit early to take full stock,” the company already plans to keep the device, acknowledging that “in this particular period of parenthood, we may have employees wondering about their pace of life.”
Companies ready for the 4-day week… to moderate wages
Still marginal in France, the four-day week is not likely to compete in the short term with the 35/39-hour week spread over five days. Firstly, because this form of organization may not be suitable for all companies. Then, because most of the leaders continue to view this system badly.
But the lines seem to have been moving for a few months. Sometimes for reasons that are likely to upset employees. Asked by the consultancy Alixio as part of a survey carried out in October and November 2022, more than one in ten business leaders (12%) said they planned to establish the four-day week to “allow for salary moderation” in a context of inflation, while almost one in five (19%) do not know.
69%, however, continue to oppose the four-day week. L’Oréal’s Vice President of the National Association of HRDs and HRDs, Benoît Serre, is just as skeptical: “On an individual level, anyone will find it a good idea in the short term. On the other hand, in the medium term, beware. , because those who talk about it don’t necessarily think about lowering the weekly workload,” he recalls. This entails two risks, according to him: “The first is that all these times of management, of exchanges, that social bond that constitutes the company, will disappear, he estimates. On the other hand, there is a risk of having a kind of overpressure (of employees), of an overinvestment of people in a short period of time that could lead to health problems at work”.
Arguments contested by Camille Darde. Elmy’s human resources department says he is “quite convinced” that the four-day week will eventually go mainstream where possible, “in a context where the relationship to work has changed.” “There is a reality principle that makes companies adapt to the expectations of employees,” she argues.
For its part, the government does not interfere in the debate and leaves the election. Questioned at the beginning of the year on the subject, Elisabeth Borne, then Minister of Labor, explained that “there could be negotiations in the companies but” that the four-day week could not “be imposed on everyone”. “I think it is a business choice, it can be discussed. (…) I do not recommend it at all. And it cannot be that we decide it from above, ”she said in follow-up.
Source: BFM TV
