France: at Kantar, the weekend starts on Friday at 3pm

Since July 2021, employees at the market research and consulting company Kantar Insights France have been able to stop work at 3pm every Friday. This measure, which was originally run on a trial basis, is being introduced at the same time as a teleworking agreement that allows three days remote working a week, and concerns most of the 300 employees at the company’s French subsidiary. The agreement includes ‘a ban on sending emails at weekends’, says CEO Ketty de Falco to Malakoff Humanis editorial Le Comptoir. In return for the reduced working hours, employees relinquished two of their 13 days of RTT allowance (reduction or working time). To make the transition a success, “We also pushed employees, whether they were managers or not, not to attend all meetings if they did not concern them,” the executive explains. Some 81% of staff are said to be satisfied with the shortened working week, which stemmed from the desire to protect employee mental health. The measure will be extended to the company’s subsidiaries in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy. Indeed working hours could ultimately be further reduced to four and a half days a week, without any reduction in pay.