The Scandinavian languages ??(Danish, Swedish and Norwegian) share a word that is not found in the rest of the world’s languages: arbeidsglaede. Arbejds means work and glaede, happiness. So the literal translation of this concept would be “happiness at work”. A YouTube video, which would make the Galician-Catalan comedian Pepe Rubianes roll in his grave, explains that those who feel identified with the arbeidsglaede “like and are proud of the work they do and feel comfortable with their responsibilities, his colleagues and with his bosses (…); in short, they will work with joy”.
Rubianes performed for a decade (1997-2006) his most remembered work, which included a parody about social functioning in Spain (El trabajo dignifica, do you remember?). The labor market has changed a lot since then due to the introduction of new technologies, but Spain is still far from Denmark or Germany. And most of its workers still feel sadly reflected by the monologue of the remembered Pepe Rubianes.
However, there are companies in our country that have moved ahead of the Central Government’s plans to implement hourly regulation formulas respecting the full salary of their employees. In all the cases analyzed by La Vanguardia, the change has resulted in an improvement in the productivity of the company and the living conditions of the employees.
Metropolitan House
In 2000, Miguel Ángel Angulo finished his ADE studies in Aarhus (Denmark). Then he already perceived great differences between the Danish and Spanish labor markets: “(…) Banks were only open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and not every day; at the same time, in Spain, they even worked on Saturdays to update the customers’ notebooks”, he explains. When he joined (2003) as head of innovation at Metropolitan House, Angulo already proposed reducing the lunch break to free up Friday afternoons and facilitate reconciliation: “20 years ago, this was a rarity”, remember
The pandemic served as a stimulus to promote new transformations. “After covid, the value of time has gone up a lot. The salary is still important, but the working conditions now weigh more.” In January 2023, MH implemented the 4-day working day: from 37 hours a week it went to 34 between Monday and Thursday, without a reduction in payroll. There is only one hour for lunch, and most of them do it in shifts at the office. The measure represents a reduction of 15.87% of the hours marked by its sectoral agreement, although it is subject to maintaining the company’s productivity.
Angulo proposes the change as an “organizational innovation measure”, a way to make better use of time and for this to lead to greater efficiency. For the company, it requires rethinking work processes. “I insisted a lot on limiting the duration and the presence of people in the meetings,” he explains. The employees appreciate it and are more committed: “It has improved our quality of life. Friday is a day for shopping, sports, rest, lunch with friends, etc., confesses one of the employees. “And they enter Marca and Facebook less”, Angulo interjects, amused. “This saying ‘I’ll leave it for tomorrow’ has faded, because Tuesday is almost halfway through the week, Wednesday is almost over and work has to go. And if you have to come on a Friday, or two, it comes without anyone asking you. It’s a matter of responsibility”, admits another worker.
Advantage Consulting
The pandemic was also the signal that Sylvia Taudien, executive director of Advantage Consulting, needed to change the pace: “The time we worked remotely did not slow down, on the contrary. And when we came back I saw that the people were very exhausted. I thought about what I could offer them to improve their mental health and attract more people to the company: in January 2021 I proposed the 4-day working day with the same salary”. Three years have passed, and each one has meant a new phase in the search for a better way to organize work in this company of 20 people, all women.
“In the first year, the same working hours were concentrated from Monday to Thursday; the second, the employees asked to decide when to take the holiday, because the model of four days of very intense work was still very rigid. Most kept Friday afternoon free and took the other half day when they needed it; and now there is total autonomy: they all take the day off when they want, and I don’t even look at whether they work 40 hours or 36 or 32, I only care that the projects come out…”.
How have these changes affected the company’s productivity? “Our profit has tripled between 2020 and 2023”, assures Taudien. And he attributes it to the fact that “we are now a more mature, agile and flexible organisation. The “most dedicated and efficient” employees, he says, are young women with children. Most of them work part-time, which is very common in Germany, their country of origin. Not for the same salary, because according to Taudien, the main problem in Spain is that “wages are very low, half of what they are in Germany. “If the Government intends to reduce hours and wages, it will not work”, he says.
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If there is one sector that, due to its work dynamics, is reluctant to apply changes to its schedules, it is the services sector. The El Xeflis restaurant chain, created in Madrid in 2017, was one of the hospitality businesses that operated in the traditional way: six days a week, without split shifts and all the necessary hours of attention to the public. Until the confinement arrived: “It was chaos”, recalls María Alvárez, co-owner of a company in which women are also the majority (coincidence?). “Many of us had children at home, and this created tremendous personal tensions. When we returned from ERTE we realized that it was impossible to reconcile the new reality with six-day days. And on top of that, no schools,” says Alvárez.
The 4-day workday was instituted “as an emergency solution to a problem that will not be repeated”. But then they saw that “it was a lever to produce transformations of a productive nature: introducing technology, changing the menu, improving the service… In short: to be much more modern”. According to his opinion, “the conditions of hospitality are incompatible with mental health”. What was your solution? “Introduce innovation, technology and new ways of thinking”, he explains. “We put machinery in the kitchen and in the living room: vegetable cutters, industrial air fryers and an app for the customer to order with their mobile phone from the table”. In this way they improved the processes to produce more with the same people: “It’s not about hiring more and increasing my labor costs, but about creating better jobs”. The 50 employees of El Xeflis work 35 hours a week spread over 4 days and with the same salary as before.
The numbers have not suffered. “The investment in machinery is not relevant compared to the time you save when you improve processes. These machines cost 10,000 euros. We have made profits every year after this change”. And the staff? “People who work with us stay longer. And most importantly: we have access to another kind of worker. They are no longer people who enter at the age of 20 and at 30 are burnt out because they cannot keep up with the rhythm of working 16 hours. We offer a workplace that is compatible with studying or having children, so employees are more engaged. It is a more honest relationship: they are there because it suits them, because they want to be there”, he concludes.
