Many countries have introduced shorter work weeks which are productive and cost effective

Bank employees are finally getting their long pending demand of a five-day work week with the Indian Banks Association (IBA) considering giving them fixed two days off every week. At present banks are closed on all Sundays and the second and fourth Saturdays in a month. According to media reports, the IBA and the United Forum of Bank Unions have tentatively agreed to implement a five-day workweek. This needs final approval by the Government. Currently, bank employees work on alternate Saturdays. However, with the new proposal in place, banks may remain closed on all Saturdays, leading to an increase in bank holidays. This move, if approved, will provide much-needed relief to bank employees who have been demanding a five-day workweek for a long time. According to reports, as per the new proposal in a five-day work week, the working hours will be increased for the bankers. This means that employees will need to work 40 minutes more every day from 9.45 am to 5.30 pm.

For the past many years, bank employees have been demanding a five day work week, as it is prevalent all over the world and also as it is prevailing in other segments in India. It is unexplainable why the bank management (read it as government) has taken so many years to concede the same, while the government itself has adopted a five day week.

Only the Banking department of the Reserve Bank of India works on the first and third Saturdays of the month and even here cash counters are not open to the public. This is kept so as in alignment with the commercial banks. Otherwise, in a way, RBI is also following five days a week for many of its functions. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), which has taken over the Agricultural credit functions of RBI, is also working five days a week. The Supreme Court of India has 193 working days a year for its judicial functioning, while the various High Courts function for approximately 210 days, and trial courts for 245 days.  When the bank employees were struggling to convince the government to have a 5-day week, other developed countries are trying to experiment with a 4-day week. When a five-day week is adopted, various benefits accrue to the banks and the following are considered significant: Enhanced efficiency, Reduced absence rate, Enhanced enterprise competition, Retention of talents and Promotion of corporate image. Complete shutting of offices will also result in considerable savings on the cost of electricity etc.The following benefits may accrue to the employees also: Rest and recuperation leading to greater devotion, Enhance time with family, lesser travel to the office, the scope for further studies and improvement of knowledge. With increased holidays, people may travel more and this will boost the economy.

Indian banks have adopted core banking solutions long back. Most of the transactions can be done online without visiting the bank branch. Practically there is no need for customers to visit a bank branch nowadays. The International Monetary Fund has reported the achievement of India on the following lines (in Sep 2022) “India’s digital payment volume has climbed at an average annual rate of about 50 per cent over the past five years. That itself is one of the world’s fastest growth rates, but its expansion has been even more rapid—about 160 per cent annually—in India’s unique, real-time, mobile-enabled system, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Transactions more than doubled, to 5.86 billion, in June from a year earlier as the number of participating banks jumped 44 per cent, to 330. Values nearly doubled in the same period. In addition, the RBI in March introduced a UPI for feature phones (older devices with buttons instead of touchscreens) that can potentially connect 400 million users in distant rural areas.Some customers who could visit the bank branch on Saturdays for their loan processing may not able to do so. Then some industries have peculiar requirements like construction industries  which may need huge cash on weekends for payment of wages etc. would have to shift to online payments.

(The writer is a retired banker. The views expressed are personal.)