They are known for pushing their staff hard, now Samsung have announced the introduction of more flexible working hours, allowing employees to take one Friday off per month.
The company are paying attention to a brand new working hour scheme, bringing back discussions surrounding four-day workweeks in an effort to hold onto staff.
The new policy will be applied to all employees able to fulfill a required 160-168 hours of required work hours during the month.
Production workers will be excluded due to working on rotating shifts.
It will be labelled as “Family Day” by the Device Solution division, and “Development Day” by the Device eXperience division.
It allows employees to take off the Friday of payday week if they choose to.
This change follows an agreement made in the joint labour-management conference that was held in April, that suggested the monthly day off.
Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong has said, “What we should do is to bring in good talent, and make a flexible work culture for the company to easily adapt to change.”
A Samsung official said, “We are introducing a system for a flexible work environment, for employees to better manage their working and resting hours. But the company does not plan to adopt a four-day workweek system any time soon.”
This is not the first time the company has offered a similar arrangement. From April to May 2020, workers with children were able to work four days a week.
There are countries all around the globe looking at implementing a four day workweek nationally.
The Japanese government introduced a recommendation with the annual policy guideline, suggesting companies try out the four day workweeks.
Belgium introduced a law last November allowing employees to maintain the same amount of work hours over four days, without losing salary.
South Africa and Iceland have also tried out a shorted workweek, among others.
