Due to the current social, societal, and economic situation there is a need for reducing the working hours. While most countries allow individual working hours’ arrangement, which is subject to the principle of proportionality, they are now striving towards a systemic introduction of a shorter work schedule. A systemic introduction entails a change of working hours at the level of the organization or country, with wages, years of service and other benefits remaining unaffected. Numerous attempts to introduce shorter working hours have shown many positive effects with past researches reporting an improvement in general well-being and sleep, decreased stress and anxiety, higher productivity, better work life balance etc. Following previous researches, we decided to observe changes in employees during their transition from 8 to 6-hour workday. We were interested how the 6-hour workday affects life satisfaction, job satisfaction, and individual aspects of the work situation, employee engagement, work performance, and the conflict between work and family. The longitudinal data was collected in three separate periods with both the quantitative method (six questionnaires) and qualitative method (focus groups). The sample of twelve individuals showed that a 6-hour workday increased life satisfaction and reduced conflict between work and family. Job satisfaction, employee engagement, and work performance also gradually improved. However, the results were not significant and the hypothesis was not supported. This was the first Slovenian longitudinal research on the systemic introduction of a 6-hour workday with the goal of contributing to a better understanding of the effects of a shorter work schedule and providing employers with detailed insight into practice.
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