AMIDST LAYOFFS, MICROSOFT TESTED 2,300 EMPLOYEES FOR MORE PRODUCTIVITY

In order to test the efficiency of workers and productivity, Mircosoft Japan gave his 2,300 employees five Fridays in a row off work, without any changes being made to their pay.

The experiment proved to be fruitful for Microsoft where the company found that employees were both happier and more productive during the trial. It was called “Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019”.

“Work a short time, rest well and learn a lot. I want employees to think about and experience how they can achieve the same results with 20% less working time," Microsoft Japan president and CEO Takuya Hirano was quoted as saying by the reports.

Meanwhile, the experiment was conducted as just a trial and it is not clear if or when it will become an official policy. Further, Hirano told that the company promised their employees to give $1000 for a family for summer vacation.

“In the spirit of a growth mindset, we are always looking for new ways to innovate and leverage our own technology to improve the experience for our employees around the globe,” a Microsoft spokesman was quoted as saying.

Reports also say that the experiment is not new as the New Zealand company Perpetual Guardian experimented with a similar policy last year. In fact, the company pulled off it with only 240 employees and the results were quite impressive.

While the world is going through a series of layoff season, such innovative methods to improve an organization's productivity has been widely appreciated. In fact, a Harvard study revealed that more productivity is achieved when the workday is decreased from 8 hours to 6 hours. Another study published in 2018 by the Workforce Institute at Kronos revealed that half of the full-time employees who were surveyed believed that they could get their job done in 5 hours or less each day.