Uniqlo to begin offering four-day workweek plan

Uniqlo has announced their plans to begin offering the option of working on a four day workweek to their employees.

As of now, the offer will be limited to the approximately 10,000 employees the company currently employs in store-based positions inside Japan.

Uniqlo will begin offering the four-day workweek options to their employees beginning this October.

The offer has a few caveats.

According to CNN Money, Uniqlo employees who will choose the four-day workweek plan will have to put in 10 hours a day on the days they are expected to come in for work. The same employees who will also opt to accept the offer will also be approached by the company to put in work during weekends and holidays especially when branches are expecting to have plenty of business on those days.

Uniqlo has also indicated that they expect around 20 percent of their Japanese store-based employees to take them up on their offer a four-day workweek.

According to the company, they have decided to make the offer of a four-day workweek to their employees in part because they believe it will help them better hang on to their employees.

Japanese workers are among the most overworked employees in the world. 22 percent of Japanese workers routinely log around 49 hours of work in a given week, which is considerably higher than in other countries. For example, only 16 percent of Americans are asked to put in the same amount of work in a given week.

Uniqlo also believes that providing their employees with the option of working only four days a week will enable them to spend more time with their families and even attend special family functions as they appear on the calendar.

The company believes that giving employees this option will make them more likely to stick with the company long term.

According to Bloomberg, Uniqlo, in particular, has a lot invested in making sure that they are able to hold on to as many of their employees can. The company puts new hires through an intensive two-week training program designed to get them up to speed when it comes to working for the Uniqlo brand and losing people who have already gone through that means sunk costs end up on Uniqlo's bottom line.

If the four-day workweek plan proves successful for Uniqlo's store-based employees, the company will reportedly look to offer the same option inside their corporate offices and even in the United States.