Valencia will be the first Spanish city to test a four-day workday. Starting next Monday, April 10, the city council will launch a pilot project to verify the app’s impact and consequences on the productivity, leisure, mobility, economy and health of people working 32 hours a week. This experience was supplemented by other similar experiences carried out in various countries, including Lithuania, England, New Zealand, Germany, Sweden, Iceland, Portugal or Japan.

The date chosen to start the experiment coincided with three consecutive holidays on Mondays and due to the switch of holidays from January to this month. So, the weeks of April 10 (Easter Monday), April 17 (San Vicente Ferrer), April 24 (for January 22, San Vicente Mártir) and May 1 (Labor Day) will only be four weeks of working days, these weeks coincides with three

The proposal starts from a dialogue process with the sectors involved: trade unions, companies, neighborhood associations, institutions and other social agencies; even though consisti have to take exams and study “what happened” with quantitative and objective data. To do this, Las Naves City Council’s innovation center will evaluate the results to come to a conclusion of this test by July 20.

The Mayor, Joan Ribó, has shown that Valencia is the European benchmark in innovation and it is an innovative experience. “We want a friendly and healthy city that cares about people. We want people to work to live, not live to work,” he said on March 24 during the launch of an information campaign on the four-day workday.

Study of three major fields

From the pilot program, three major areas will be studied: it health and social welfareThat climate emergency And economy. In particular, issues such as use of time, work-life reconciliation, feelings of well-being, rest, impact of actions on greenhouse gases, air quality, silence, energy consumption, etc. will be analysed. public transport networks, domestic tourism, hospitality, trade and buying in shops and stores, among other issues.

According to the mayor, the pandemic made it possible to work remotely, assisted by advances in technology, and brought about a change in the way of working that is different from face-to-face.

The fight against climate change has introduced another factor to tryReduce pollution emissions with fewer daily trips who also support this cultural shift towards other ways of working.

“I am optimistic and now we have to go further”, as has been done with pedestrian spatial arrangements in the city center, where the reduction in vehicular traffic does not reduce business sales, according to the Mayor .

Assistance with reducing working hours

In order to “stimulate” the reduction of working hours, in the Valencian Community, the Department for Sustainable Economy, Productive Sectors, Trade and Labor offers assistance to companies for implementation, without affecting staff salaries.

In 2022, it offers companies more than 9,000 euros in assistance for each worker working 32 hours a day, always with prior agreement with the employee’s legal representative and a productivity improvement plan.

Follow all the information from Five days in the Facebook, Twitter And LinkedInor in our newsletter Five Day Agenda