The CEO of Unilever, one of the UK's biggest companies, has said that its employees will never return to working from their desk five days a week anymore. Alan Jope speaking at a Reuters conference said the five-days-a-week working model seems very ancient now, reported The Guardian.
The COVID-19 pandemic saw all companies shift to a work from home culture and Jope intends to keep a hybrid model of work, where employees can shuffle between work from home and office.
He also encouraged all employees to receive vaccinations against COVID-19. and those who opted not to be vaccinated would face mandatory testing. “I don’t want any of my employees to be jumping the queue on frontline medical workers or vulnerable people," he added.
After seeing the way people were able to adapt to the pandemic, Jope mentioned that the company would look at experimenting with different work patterns. In fact, in New Zealand, its staff is already trialing a four-day working week. The 81 New Zealand staff will continue with the four-day week until December when Unilever will assess its performance and consider whether to extend it around the world.
Unilever, the third most valuable company on the London Stock Exchange, is the maker of brands including Dove soap, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Marmite. It also owns Hellman’s, Knorr, Lipton and Persil.
