Spain recently announced a brave new national strategy to improve worker productivity.
The model was introduced during the pandemic, and is referred-to as the ‘Scandinavian Model’ – at its core is a belief that productivity will rise if working hours are reduced.
It’s only for full time employees, and Spain intends to – at least initially – finance the costs that companies incur related to program introduction, training, and other measures to improve productivity (presumably investments in technology as well).
Companies opting-into the program must assure a gender-representative cohort of their workplace. Companies as small as 21 full time employees will qualify for the program (and up to 249 employees).
Apparently Spanish telecom provider Telefonica is taking the lead, and has offered its employees the opportunity to work a four-day week, extending a pilot programme that initially involved about 150 workers, but in exchange for a 12 per cent pay cut.
We think this is a great idea, and congratulate our progressive Spanish peers on developing this program.
The question is – could this work for your business?
For more on this topic, please visit this article on EuroNews.