India’s number one export house Shahi Exports is known for its worker-friendly policies and it is often heard in the apparel industry that once a worker joins this organisation, he or she rarely quits.
Recently, Shahi Exports had completed its research on anaemia in women workers as women constitute 70 per cent of its total workforce.
And now another worker-friendly policy is on the cards!
The company is planning to start a pilot project with regard to implementing the 5-day work week in one of its factories.
Anant Ahuja who heads Organizational Development at Shahi Exports and is also the CEO and Co-Founder of Good Business Lab told Apparel Resources, “In the worst situation, there can be huge loss, but so far whatever we have worked in this regard, I feel each week, there will be a loss of 3 hours as we are adding one extra working hour every day; so, the working day will now be of 9 hours and we will have 45 hours instead of 48 hours per week.”
He added “We feel that we can make up this loss of time by extending one hour of peak production, as at the end of the day, workers head towards their peak production. So, it should compensate. Secondly when workforce comes back after 2 days of holidays, they feel more refreshed and energised, and hence, we can expect their productivity, attendance and retention to be higher and long-term benefits could be there. Hence, it is an experiment and we have to see how it comes out.”
After the successful completion of the aforementioned idea, the company will further explore another interesting idea in future wherein if the workers complete their target before time, they can go home early and take rest.
