Fingersoft allows staff to less hours for 90% of full salary

Fingersoft, a Finnish mobile game developer, is trialing a system in which it allows staff to work reduced hours for 90 percent of their usual full salary.

The scheme sees staff work 80 percent of their full-time hours equating to four days a week or six hours per day, for 90 percent of the salary they’d get for working 100 percent of their hours. In addition to this scheme, the developer is working with staff on remote working to allow them to have the best work/life balance possible.

The developer plans to make the results of this trial public after an initial six-month period. If the results are deemed to be a success, then the system will be rolled out to all staff who want to use it, allowing the company to, hopefully, improve the quality of working life for all those it employs.

Jaakko Kylmäoja, Fingersoft’s CEO, explained that staff have received the system well so far. Many have already signed up to it and are looking forward to working the reduced hours and taking more control of their work/life balance.

Kylmäoja added that the company is aware that everyone is different. For some, any sort of sacrifice on the full salary you get each month isn’t an option. However, others are willing to make the sacrifice for the flexibility it gives them for childcare, home life, and all sorts of other things that affect us each and every day.

Kylmäoja believes that having more time for recovery between each day, particularly in such a creative industry, is far more beneficial than having people work as hard as they can for the maximum amount of time possible. The company is looking forward to seeing what the results of the scheme are when staff report their feelings in six months.

Reduced working weeks is something that has been available in some countries, such as Netherlands, for some time. However, other countries were vehemently against the system until the pandemic. Now, since staff around the world have proven they can work from home and get more done in the same hours, reduced working hours seems to make more sense.