Hunet, One Year of Four-Day Workweek Implementation... Hiring Competition Triples and Sales Increase by 20%

Youngtak Cho, CEO of Hunet.

Last month, Samsung Electronics announced the introduction of a four-day workweek, sparking intense interest in reducing working hours. SK Telecom, CJ ENM, Kakao Games, and others are also piloting various forms of reduced working hours systems.

Hunet, a corporate education specialist company, has been implementing a four-day workweek with Fridays off since July last year. While some companies that have adopted reduced working hours systems impose restrictions such as using up annual leave and adjusting salaries, Hunet operates a full four-day workweek unconditionally. Customer-facing departments have established the system by taking days off spread across various weekdays instead of Fridays.

The biggest effect after adopting the four-day workweek has appeared in recruitment. In recent hiring, the competition rate increased more than threefold compared to the same period last year. This means the pool of talented candidates has grown significantly. Conversely, employee turnover rates have decreased.

Hunet did not hire additional staff immediately after switching to the four-day workweek. The total number of employees remained steady, and employees focused voluntarily on improving work efficiency. As a result, the company’s performance is also on the rise. Sales in the first half of this year increased by about 20% compared to the same period last year. Following last year, growth is expected to continue this year as well.

Employee satisfaction with the four-day workweek is very high. In a recent employee survey, 82.4% of employees responded that they are making good use of the four-day workweek. 93.5% expressed satisfaction with the four-day workweek. The opinion that “quality of life has improved” was very high at 94.1%.

Hunet is putting considerable effort into improving work efficiency to firmly establish the four-day workweek. They emphasize the “100-80-100” principle: “100% salary, 80% working hours, 100% performance.” They continuously run productivity improvement campaigns to focus on core tasks by improving work processes, strategically eliminating tasks, and streamlining meetings.

Cho Young-tak, CEO of Hunet, said, “The four-day workweek is not employee welfare but a tool to improve productivity. Since employees try to complete five days’ work within four days, they are increasing work efficiency in their own ways, such as finding new ideas.” He added, “Thanks to this, the company’s performance has improved. As a company that introduced the four-day workweek first, we feel a responsibility to successfully establish the system.”