We recently published an article on unlimited paid vacations, offered by Silicon Valley companies, or by Gsoft, closer to us here in Montreal.
It seems time to rearrange work in favour of employees!
To live better, work less.
This is in essence the message issued by Carlos Slim, the Mexican businessman said to have the largest fortune in the world, according to Forbes in 2013.
Carlos Slim’s idea takes a few words: “With three work days each week, we would have more time to relax and have a better quality of life. This would also be an excellent way of creating new activities for entertainment and leisure”, he said in a speech in Uruguay.
Only work 11 hours a day and three days per week, yes!, but up until 70 or 75 years old…
Working longer means balancing quality of life with the possibility of having, during active life, 4 days to benefit from free time and be devoted to your family and its activities, etc.
The system has already been implemented in his company Telmex, where its employees can currently choose to work 4 days a week (instead of 6 as is currently the practise in Mexico), keeping the same salary, and be able to retire at 50 years old, if they started working in his company before they were 20 years old.
The idea of organizing work time that is synonymous with quality of life and personal development has also made inroads at Google: according to the founder, Larry Page, it is not normal for employees to work “frantically” and part-time work could meet this problem by allowing his employees to strengthen personal development (read about it here: http://recode.net/2014/07/05/the-future-of-the-workforce-may-be-part-time-says-google-ceo-larry-page/)