The 4-day summer working week at PwC is coming, but you have to work late

With the introduction of the 4-day summer working week, or 3-day summer long weekends, the organisation aims to help its employees recharge and achieve a healthy work-life balance. The company implements the 32-hour summer working week by using a working time frame and by reallocating working hours, so that employees only change their working hours and not their basic salary. This means that the 13 summer Fridays off will have to be worked later, when the workload is heavier. The company's move is rational: there is less work in the summer audit period.

"We are in constant dialogue with our employees, listening to their feedback, their needs and adapting our flexible working arrangements, our benefits, our training or even the office environment to meet them. This is how our Mental Health programme was born in recent years, and how we introduced summer Bermuda days and extended paternity leave, among other things," said László Radványi, head of PwC's audit business.

As other companies that have previously piloted the 4-day working week (such as Magyar Telekom, where the project was eventually closed), PwC will continue to monitor, measure and analyse the impact of the innovation and will then decide whether to continue with it.

The approach is fundamentally different from what the market has seen before, because PwC is developing the 4-day summer work schedule through a shift in working hours, not a reduction in working hours.

See how the four-day working week in the UK has tested

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