The Institute for Employment and Vocational Training (IEFP) is funding up to 350 thousand euros the pilot program to reduce the working week to four days, according to the decision approving the pilot program published this Tuesday.
The pilot program, according to the order, will start in the course of 2023 and consists of evaluating the implementation of the four-day work week, with the corresponding reduction in working hours, without reduction in pay, aimed at employers and respective employees who wish to participate voluntarily.
Entities participating in the pilot program are evaluated before, during and after the program against indicators related to the company, namely productivity and intermediate costs, and to the employees, including health and well-being, using a methodology which is determined by the pilot program. coordinating team.
Responsibility for the implementation and management of the pilot program rests with the IEFP, who appoints the executive coordinator, while Birkbeck University of London appoints a scientific coordinator and the scientific team to help develop information, awareness and dissemination content, as well as design of data collection and analysis tools.
The degree authorizes the 4 Day Week Global Foundation to provide technical support to employers participating in the pilot program, with the pilot program being implemented through the signing of technical and financial partnership agreements between the IEFP, Birkbeck University of London and the 4 Day Week Worldwide Foundation.
“The implementation of the provisions of this regulation is subject to supervision and evaluation by the Permanent Commission for Social Dialogue, states the Secretary of State for Labour, Luís Fontes, who signs the regulation.
The coordinator of the pilot project of the four-day work week, Pedro Gomes, professor at Birkbeck, University of London, defended in late October that the four-day work week still has “a very long way to go” before it is implemented in Portugal, but that “it is a first step is on a journey that will take many years”.
Pedro Gomes, author of the book “Friday is the new Saturday”, was invited by the government to design and coordinate the pilot project for the four-day working week in Portugal.
The pilot program started this year, with the registration of interested companies and a first preparation phase, with the aim of implementing the pilot project in 2023.
According to the draft of the pilot project submitted by the government to the Permanent Commission for Social Dialogue, to which the Lusa agency had access at the time, the program will start in June 2023 with private companies, will last six months and without government financial incentives , and will later be extended to the public sector, if the evolution is satisfactory.
Only in a second phase, and through the evolution of the pilot program, will the experience of the four-day week be extended to the public sector, justifying the executive that this sector “requires adaptation of impact assessment tools and will be subject to different conditions” legally and budgetary.
“Gradually, and at a third point, the intention is to create favorable conditions to test a more ambitious model with a quasi-experimental design, where one group of companies will adopt the change and another group will serve as a control”, reads in the government document.
Source: DN
