Employee engagement is one of the most essential pillars for managing talent and helping them retain. HR managers are already always on the lookout for different ways to retain their top performing employees. And now, as we plunge into the journey of 2023 with new tech and trends, 4 day working week is the first thing that’s popping up in the search engines.
What is a 4 day working week going to be like?
India IT companies are new to this working module. Earlier, in the past 2-3 years, we have barely adjusted to remote working schedules and the emergence of AI tools to automate our daily work.
But 4 day work week is yet another buzzword that’s going around. And it is closely related to employees prioritising their mental health and wellbeing.
With the days a week, work will be light but more focused. Employees will have to deliver the same amount or volume of work as they do in 5 days. But then there will be more pressure on those working hours.
However, smarter HRMS can help them deal with this issue. uKnowva is one such solution here. It is a fully cost effective and easy to use tool for the young generation and new firms emerging in India. Our tool helps to improve not only employee happiness but also employee engagement rates.
More on this will be pointed out later in this blog post for you to read and think about.
Are Indian companies ready to adopt a 4-day work week?
The plan to adopt to fully 4-day work week is precarious right now. Some industries or verticals in a company can experiment and explore. But frontend verticals might not adapt to the 4-day working culture at first.
For example, social media posts must be live on the front end daily. As long as managers can schedule the posts on time, with no roadblocks, maybe that can work out well.
Again, there is still a possibility attached to that statement.
However, content creation, distribution, and optimising are already disrupting the market. uKnowva HRMS is one of the one-stop solutions in such a segment. It helps HRs and employees to set up their workflows.
Also Read: Is Workplace Automation The Future Of Work?
Now this workflow can further be automated using seamless integrations and automation. For instance, candidates get follow up reminders and emails automatically once the triggered action is in place. HR recruiters don’t have to sit behind the computer or their screens to monitor it 24/7.
Steps for 4 day working week to improve employee engagement:
Once we accept that the 4 days working week is here to stay, we can think further about how to make it our strategy to engage employees well. So note the pointers below for better clarity. They are in the purview of a human resource management system which HR leaders can leverage to future proof the organisation.
Employees can have clutter free mind space to communicate:
Returning to work after 3 days off is like taking a mini vacation every week. The idea looks like a far-fetched dream when we write about it. But the google search engine results surely say the opposite.
So when employees return to work, they will have a less cluttered mindset. They will have enough days in a week to reset and refresh. They will be keener to accept new challenges every week and complete the task within 4 days working week.
Such a culture boosts employee engagement in the workforce. That’s because employees then have fewer mental blockages. They can rejuvenate their mindset and do ample research to take their profile to the next level in the same firm in those 3 days off.
Also Read: Top 8 Employee Engagement Strategies for a Better Workplace Environment
Employees turn up to work happier than before:
This point is somehow correlated to the one mentioned before. But let’s expand on this thought further. Using tech like human resource tools to do complex work can sometimes be challenging for the non-tech workforce. They might get too involved in the work to understand the process, so they might feel anxious, burned out, or depressed.
Thus these 3 days off every week is the best time to relieve themselves of work related stress. They can turn up to work and continue to automate their mundane tasks without worry. They will commit fewer errors as their minds focus on the work on their to-dos for those days.
And when employees are happier, they are easier to talk to. They would not have a defensive mode when any other employee approaches them. They will be more receptive to constant feedback and want to connect more to get work done on time.
An organisation needs that much to level up its expected employee engagement rates. The workplace environment becomes stressful without a happy, calm, receptive, and respectful mindset. That is also applicable when we are using the social intranet to ease the communication gap between senior management and the bottom line.
Employees will be curious to communicate and share more often with their colleagues:
The concept of 4 day working week has the potential to make employees curious to share their stories with each other after they return to work. They will have more achievements completed in their personal life. And the curiosity to share their personal milestones can be one driving force for them to communicate. Their hunger for socialising will be more than expected. And then social intranet by uKnowva can help them socialise within minutes. Employees can already see online or active members on the tool. And it sends instant notification messages to the person tagged in the conversation. So initiating a new conversation with existing employees will not be an issue. There will always be something new to share, and the bond between team members will surely improve.
That’s one way to put how HR managers can boost employee engagement without extra effort. This conclusion applies to all employees, be it remote workers or the ones working from the office.
Conclusion:
A 4 day working week surely seems exciting for Indian companies to experiment and analyse its operational effectiveness. However, uKnowva HRMS can aid the organisations of tomorrow or the future of workplaces in attaining that level of optimisation. And so, employee engagement takes a new turn and reaches better heights with a social intranet accessible at a click. It has no limitations, and it runs 24/7. So anyone can reach out to the other person over the tool despite the 4 days working week.
Let’s connect to know more about how uKnowva can make your 4-day work week operationally effective and increase employee engagement to the next level.
