Is it possible to work for four days a week as the top of Devcom's main?

From the 22nd, Europe's largest game developer conference, Devcom, will be offline in three years since 2019. Devcom, a place where developers from all over the world shared their know-how before Game Scom, are the topic and various techniques and ideas of the topic and officials of industrymen after the GDC in March, from the first half of the year to the second half of that year. It is also a place where they are introduced.

The most important 'keynote' lecture is a topic that can be attracted to the attention of a highly known developer or developer. The first day of Devcom's keynote lecture belonged to the latter. This is because it was a story about the four-day work system that foreign companies have recently been introduced.

The bulkhead interactive, led by Joe Brammer's CEO, cannot be compared with large companies such as EA, but there are still a little over 100 people, including 'Batalion 1944', an early access game, and Triple A Shooter 'Wowdog' We are developing and servicing games. Nevertheless, he had a four-day week for the last seven months.

Currently, half of the bulkhead interactive personnel are being used to develop Woowok, and the other half is maintaining and developing existing works. Triple A-class game development alone has a high risk to adopt a four-day work a week with about 50 people, but he explained that he had no choice but to take it as the working environment began to change since Corona 19..

In the company, opinions were divided. As it was a studio gathered to create the best FPS, there were skeptical developers who could achieve their purpose in four days a week. On the other hand, there was an opinion that even after the corona 19 pandermic situation was completed, it was difficult to return to the previous work situation before the 19th. It has also been raised that the studio will be maintained all the time by creating an environment where young newcomers who will enter the company in the future.

However, CEO Brammer cited labor law as the biggest problem when introducing a four-day week. In the UK, where the bulkhead is located, there is no law on four days a week, so there was no standard even if you wanted to make a new labor contract. As there were no standards, legal experts and lawyers who needed to help when writing a contract were also embarrassed. Even if he consulted several times, he did not have a clear plan, and he carried out a four-day system by increasing his vacation and allowing vacation to be applied every Friday except for some exceptional days.

The situation was difficult to write a contract because the law was not prepared was only one of the problems that did not talk well in the media. He was also skeptical about the amazing productivity planted in some media. The factor of the four-day productivity increase in the media is that it takes more well-being, but in fact, the introduction of four days a week was not more than I thought. At first, he could not adapt to the changed routine. Of course, there are cases that have a rapid increase in productivity, but he mentioned the law of 10:10:80. When a system changes, 10%show better adaptability, 10%, but 80%managed. Of course, working hours are not much less than before, so productivity can be increased compared to time.

Regarding the outlook for four days a week, he admitted that human instinct is to want to work less and receive a lot of money. However, he pointed out that the current system is not right to divide it four days a week, like a knife. As the four-day work week is recently discussed, most of the life patterns, work patterns, and other companies are not following this pattern. Thus, he emphasized that the new way of working in the present age is not to share whether it is simply four days a week or five days a week.

Often in the game industry, it is expected that the creativity will increase as a four-day work week, and it will be able to achieve higher results. But sometimes he mentioned that making games is not much different from the assembly line. Once the direction is once, it is a process of continuing to make assets and assembling the parts of the game. Some of the methods to make the process more efficient can contain creativity, but until the method is completed, the front line will continue to go through the previous repeated tasks. He also pointed out that the process of increasing the efficiency is difficult for all employees to be involved in reality.

In addition, it mentioned that individuals may be creative, but the team may not be creative. If many people gather, their opinions are inevitably divided, and in the event of catching it, individual creativity is limited. On the other hand, creativity increases, such as interacting with team members and creative thoughts and sometimes creative when they are not intertwined with others.

So he simulated business hours and efficiency several times and asked for the opinions of the team members, establishing a flexible working system based on four days a week. The reason for emphasizing 'flexibility' is that everyone expressed the opposition to applying measures to fill the time that was shortened from five days a week to four days a week. For example, rather than applying 10 hours per day to fill eight hours more, it is better to maintain 8 hours a week for 8 hours a week.

He also recalled that it was a bad way to divide it into home and non-homeowners, but he added that it was inevitable. The team that maintains the existing work is processed, but the new triple A-class games are still in the process of building a process, so they have no choice but to meet the office frequently. In addition, the disconnection between the home team and the non-Jae-taek work team was also a problem.

So he once a team day, where all the studios gathered to share their work and the recent status, and formed a working system in a direction to be set as a holiday every Friday. This system is now a pilot stage, and from 2023, the bulkhead will apply improved processes.

As working hours have changed steadily for the last few decades, discussions on four-day work will continue. In relation to him, he agreed to the happiness of workers, while he was alert to unconditional optimism. This is because the time with the family will increase and the personal time will increase, but even if additional work occurs, the work can be processed without any disturbing the weekend. Some people talk about their imagination that they will work on Monday if they work four days a week, but from his point of view of actually four days a week, he added that he felt more relaxed on Sunday than Monday. This is because Saturday, which has passed by and a new weekend has changed since Bulgeum.

Q. How much will the company affect the four-day working system?

= We applied it in consideration of the team characteristics. Of course, as mentioned earlier, it is not a thorough four-day workweek, but a flexible system for four days a week will be more accurate. While spending four days a week, I had to think about how to gather all the team members or communicate with each other.

Because of the problem of communication, it would be difficult for companies to be larger than us, especially large companies. It is also a big deal to manage and communicate the community, and the process of sharing and organizing with each other in line with the change will not be the harder the company.

Q. Strictly, the workload has not changed significantly instead of working less than a day, so the daily productivity itself has increased? Nevertheless, I wonder why the productivity has not increased significantly.

= We are wary of illusion. To do so, it is not easy to continue planning and coordinating, and making a process for four days a week. And as mentioned earlier, I talked about the image of resting and releasing creativity on Monday morning and releasing creativity. From the beginning of the week, it is not just a new energy and power, but the more accurate appearance of this change is that the time for the extraordinary and leisure time has increased a day. Rather than dramatic changes that the media expect?

Q. If you go to work at home, your employees will not be shaken. How did you catch this?

Of course, the company needs to take care of employees' mentality. In fact, even if you don't say it, it's obvious that it's good for mentality to mentally take care of households at home and take a break while looking at the kids, and to take a break at home and go to work at home. Not.

However, in the game development process, sometimes it is efficient to gather offline. The zoom meeting is not bad, but the online meeting is not 100% replaced. I felt like that. First of all, our studio gathered with the goal of creating the best FPS, so we decided to approach it flexibly to achieve that purpose. Of course, the team that worked at home admitted it, but it wasn't very welcome to appear in the company.

. Especially among young employees, employees who started working at home tended to be more tended. I was not used to interaction with each other even when I came to work, but I was worried about how to match it.