The Future of Work is in for a (Gigantic) ChangeThe four-day workweek means turbo powering your hourly productivity. Is India Ready for it?

The idea that seems to be gaining cultural popularity in recent times, in part because of COVID has been the four-day workweek. Already companies in Europe and Australasia, Japan are swearing by its efficacy and citing growth in productivity of their people and less attrition rate. It has seen moderate to high success in the technology sector and some other sectors like FMCG and even Restaurants who are beginning to dabble with it.

The 4X10 or 4X 8 models are surely catching steam but in India where monthly payrolls are the way organizations work, its effectiveness is yet to be ascertained. Undeniably, it would call for a big shift in management thinking at the employer's end to build processes that can bring hourly outputs, and the Indian workforce would need to figure and deliver in hours rather than days or weeks or even months. Slowly but surely, it would give rise to the "project-based work culture", where people do not work for an organization but rather work on a project that is time-bound. It has been a more popular style, even within the organization in the technology and the consulting sector, and in the future will be put to use by other sectors too. Who stands to benefit from it? Almost everyone. It could be super beneficial for the experienced senior workforce to offer their hours of service. It could be great for students who want to study and work and also for professionals to do a side hustle. Most importantly for businesses who are always fighting and losing money on attrition and complacency. With some adjustments, Indian businesses could lend themselves to four-day work week models.

With the advancement of work-from-home culture and future migration to four weekdays and hybrid working models, there would also be a rethinking needed on the large corporate offices. On one hand, people do not want to be in a crowded office space and would prefer odd-even type models, on the other hand, it's not as easy to set up work from the home office if you do not have additional bedrooms, dedicated space, childcare options, and a large home overall and not everyone has that. Also, there is a need for most companies where they encourage their own employees to interact more for enhanced output and peer learning and competition.

This would bring open many corporate offices to be accessible as co-working spaces to everyone looking for innovation, learning, and collaboration. Highly likely that the co-working industry will be back with a big bang as they make possible the dream of office next door or walk to the office culture. In fact, co-working companies may be the new commercial real estate aggregators as there may be many new collaborations underway between corporate offices and co-working companies, to drive the abundantly existing commercial infrastructure into good use. Our issue covers some of the most promising co-working spaces that promise this culture in 2021 and forward.

Our issue also talks about Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) formed to raise capital in Initial Public Offering (IPO) with the purpose of using the funds to acquire one or more businesses identified after the IPO