Is India ready for a 4 day work week?

The government of India is going to introduce a new labour code "Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions, 2020". It will provide flexibility for the companies to reduce the working days to 4 instead of 5 or 6.

The government is in process to finalize the rule and implement this very soon. According to the secretary "most of the states are in the process of finalizing their daft rules on labour codes". But center will not wait for all states to notify their rules.

Once this rolled out, the employees will get 3 paid leaves in a week instead of 2 or 1.

The change in working days doesn't have any impact on the weekly working hours. As per the rules, maximum weekly work hours are 48 and it would remain same for a four day work week too. It means longer work days for employees.

If employees work 8 hours a day and 6 days in a week now, with this new model they need to work 12 hours a day.

As stated by the labour secretary, the consent of both employers and employees is required for this. It will now be mutually agreed to by the employees and employers as to what is appropriate for them.

As per the government, The Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions, 2020 will be applicable to all establishments and factories. Henceforth, employers or establishments will not have to seek any permission from the government to reduce the work days in a week even four. Currently, employers have to take the consent of the government to reduce the number of work days in a week.

But it is not mandatory to implement, it would be optional and a choice of the organizations if they want to implement it or not.

The Beroe Inc tried this four day work week concept four years ago in 2017 in India.

As per the Human Resource experts, there could be no more than a handful of companies who could implement a 4 day work week. The manufacturing companies, real estate firms and the BPO are few examples where it seems not feasible to implement.

A survey conducted in 2020 showed that employees feel a four-day work week concept is at least five years away in India. Especially when in some organizations like the IT companies, where the employees already made to work longer hours and beyond 5 days too.