After a pilot period that involved around 330 employees since March 2022, the German chain of bricolage and DIY extended the project across Germany. According to the press release, from September 2022, 11,000 employees in stores, logistics sites and administration departments already have the option of selecting the so-called “Bespoke Working Hours” for the following calendar year.  

The new ‘tailor-made work system' offers five cumulative options for adjusting working hours upwards or downwards on an annual basis:

- Three of them enable employees to reduce their working hours (for example, by converting vacation pay or Christmas allowances into up to 20 additional days of vacation). Employees can decide to work part-time for limited or unlimited periods and to use their annual salary increase to reduce the number of working hours gradually.

- Employees can restructure their working hours, for example, by opting for a four-day week while still working full time at 37.5 hours a week.

- Employees can also increase their working hours to 42.5 hours a week for a three, six, or nine-month period.

The programme also applies to managers, while trainees and students are not eligible to participate.

The reasons why employees decide to join a programme that allows them to change their working hours are very heterogeneous. Still, they all share a need for flexibility: from parents who want to spend more time with their families to employees who want to work temporarily and earn more money for financial reasons to employees just before retirement who need more rest.

Jochen Braun, a manager at Hornback, said: “Fixed working hours used to be dictated by machines, but now it is all about people. Our aim at Hornbach is to attract and retain highly committed staff. To achieve this, we also have to create attractive conditions. People’s circumstances vary so widely. Rigidly structured working hours hardly do justice to that. That is why we wish to enable our staff to optimally align their working conditions to their situations by flexibly agreeing to ‘Bespoke Working Hours’”.

The pilot project has been very well received, confirming that the need to balance personal and working life is increasingly important for employees and that companies that are better able to adapt to these needs are more likely to retain good, satisfied, and, therefore, more productive employees.