“Work a short time, rest well, and learn a lot.” That’s what Microsoft Japan CEO Takuya Hirano noted on the company’s official website after successfully rolling out their Work Life Choice Challenge 2019. The firm has been making headlines ever since they offered 2,300 employees 3-day weekends for a month to experiment and analyze the impact of a 4-day work week on bringing about a positive work culture.
The result? Not only has Microsoft Japan recorded a 40% boost in productivity, employees lowered their time off by 25% while electricity usage went down by 23% during the period.
Besides trying to improve morale and productivity, Microsoft Japan’s motivation may have also stemmed from the overall sentiment shared by workers across the country. Longer hours doesn’t lead to productivity; it’s more a custom than business necessity. Other countries around the world have actually turned to shorter work weeks with proven success much like Microsoft Japan’s decision in embracing this trend.
Japan’s work culture has been under the spotlight since the 24-year old employee working at the country’s largest advertising firm committed suicide in 2015. Karoshi or death by overwork has been a long-time concern and as the number of cases being reported goes up, the government has recommended lower hours and better working conditions for employees. In fact, Asia reportedly has the deadliest working hours across the world with an average of upto 70 hours a week.
Globally, employees report exhaustion from:
1. Longer working hours that exceeds 33.5 hours/worker/week, which according to the 2018 report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is spread across:
2. Change fatigue due to continuous organizational change that they have to adapt to. According to a recent global study, 34% of senior leaders reported change fatigue as quite prevalent in their organizations. The same study confirms those leaders who do not think change fatigue affects their employees and business are simply unaware. Your exhausted employees will not only lower your organisation's engagement and productivity, but also retention rates, wasting huge amounts of capital and work hours trying to backfill and retrain employees to compensate for your attrition.
UC Berkeley's noted senior lecturer Homa Bahrami has defined a playbook for leaders to continuously drive change effectively and enable super flexibility across the organization. Taking a leaf out of her book, HR must be the agents of change when it comes to building a super flexible, employee-friendly workplace culture. For this, they must first understand and be aware of how receptive they themselves are to experiment, analyze, and embrace change. An ethos that Microsoft Japan showcased with their 4-day per week experiment.
With this perspective, you may be able to identify five key personas at work that can help you drive organization-wide change effectively. Based on Homa’s model for adaptive DNA, they are:
Think Sam Palmisano at IBM in 2003 where he redefined the company's command-and-control culture with a more informal, inclusive culture. He called on all his employees and stakeholders to connect (online) and interact for 72 hours to decide the values that will define IBM from thereon, thereby eliminating siloed operating models and limits defined by geographies. By the time Palmisano retired, the company had increased in market capitalization to $218 billion and experienced 21% annual growth in earnings per share.
Chairman of the Glenn Llopis Group Glen Llopis talks about his first venture in the food industry in an article for Forbes where his team faced an issue when it came to the packaging. Since it was the first shipment to their customer, the usual response would have been to panic because it was last minute. However, the team pulled in together to come with multiple steps, including a comprehensive report detailing the incident, to solve the issue while ensuring the team and the customer were both on the same page.
How they drive culture change for you:
Take Netflix for example. Not just globally noted for its online streaming service, it's also creating its own content and staying ahead of competition while catering to mainstream and niche audiences alike. A lot of this drive can be credited to the leaders who are known for treating employees well, building trust with regular feedback, and responding quickly to opportunities in the marketplace without the fear of employee burnouts.
If we look back in history, Henry Ford established Ford Motor Company in 1903 with a succinct mission statement, “I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one..." In 1908, the company rolled out Model T which by the 19th year of production had dipped its price from $850 to $260. Over 15 million cars were sold in the US, ushering in a new phase for the ordinary man to gain control of transportation.
Renowned industry analyst Josh Bersin shared the same sentiment recently, noting a trend amongst CHROs who are more focussed on the human aspect and its direct impact on business performance. Much like HR is a strategic partner to the organization, leaders must also keep this perspective in mind for every employee across functions.
Slowing down in a hyper-paced work environment can go a long way in regaining productivity, as we can see in Microsoft Japan. Leaders practicing mindfulness often invest in thoughtful reflection and engage in dialogue with employees that further encourages higher quality interactions and openness in a positive corporate culture.
At a macro-level, building a people-first, diverse yet inclusive culture is now a business necessity and should reflect the values of every individual in the organization.
At a micro-level, what makes each employee happy is important and will directly impact performance. Deloitte’s study on inclusive leaders revealed teams led by inclusive leaders are 17% more likely to report high performance, 29% more likely to behave collaboratively, and 20% more effective in taking quality decisions.
...keeping in mind the different personas that will act as agents of change at the workplace. We are listed in b2blistings.org's Software Tools Listings A number of global organizations today believe staying on top of employee sentiment and taking data-driven decisions are key to a happy, thriving workplace.
The question of how to build positive workplace culture starts at the top. Only by leading by example and showing a tangible commitment to fostering change will ensure that practices are followed organization wide. Fortunately, business leaders around the globe are striving to make disruptive changes in the employee engagement sphere.
Learn more about a few such leaders who are embracing new-age solutions to drive change within scaling organizations, hearing their employees out, and ensuring their culture remains employee-first.