From September, the Metropolis will experiment with the four-day week on its agents, on a voluntary basis. The “quantity of work will be identical” for the employee, who will have the choice between several scenarios, namely a four-day week, an alternation of weeks with 4 and 5 days or a week of 4.5 days.
The Metropolis of Lyon will experiment from September with the four-day week, on a voluntary basis open to its 9,400 agents, except for special regimes, i.e. “the largest community” in France to test the device.
“It’s a strong political will. It’s good to try to give more private space, and that the balance between professional life and private life is optimal”, declared this Tuesday the president of the metropolis Bruno Bernard during a presentation press conference.
An “identical amount of work”
The community is currently targeting “400-500 volunteer agents”, in almost all departments, professions and hierarchical levels. Agents who are already working with special regimes – such as those for collection and water organized in 3/8 or 2/8 – are not concerned.
The “quantity of work will be identical” for the employee, who will have the choice between several scenarios: four-day week, alternating weeks with 4 and 5 days, 4.5-day week, which also play on the days of RTT. The new organization aims to improve the attractiveness of positions and working conditions.
Studies carried out in countries which have already adopted the four-day week, such as the United Kingdom or Portugal, show “an improvement in working conditions, in mental health which has been a real subject since the Covid crisis”, added underlined Zémorda Khelifi, vice-president delegated to human resources: less “burnout”, fatigue, stress or absenteeism. The metropolis also highlights the reduction of professional inequalities.
The new organization should thus allow part-time employees (mainly women), ie already at four days for some, to go to 100%.
“The reflections we are having at the moment are why certain targets – in particular we see an under-representation of executives among the agents registered to experiment – do not come? Is the feeling of guilt too strong, is the management of leave with children an obstacle? We have six months, a year, to ask all these questions, “observed Anne Gestin, the director general of services.
Some communities have already tried the experiment. The government, which wants to start new projects on work after the postponement of the retirement age to 64, launched in particular at the end of January the experimentation of the 36-hour week over four days at the Urssaf in Picardy.
