New Weekend – Medina Newspaper

With the launch of privatization, and the transfer of several employees of the Ministry of Health to Health Holdings, as well as the recent revisions to the retirement and social security systems, which include raising the early retirement age from 25 to 30 and raising the normal retirement age from 60 to 65. His service time does not exceed 240 months – in view of the launch of privatization, there is an urgent need to bring good news to workers in these different industries and increase the retirement age of the social security system, as well as the economic status of the Kingdom, approving (the new weekend) is no longer an unnecessary luxury, but a pressing need to reduce…work stress, and create an attractive and stimulating work environment that may help break the stagnation and monotony of long-term service and deepen the connection between our local market and other markets around the world.

The new weekend system we are pursuing means that employees in the practical department enjoy two and a half days of vacation per week, with a half-time break on Friday, and rest on Saturday and Sunday, without any increase in working hours. The daily working hours are still 8 hours on Monday and Thursday, and 4 hours on Friday, that is, 36 hours per week, in order to keep up with the current changes and maintain the fulfillment of religious duties and rituals.

I said it in a previous article, and I say it again here, professional studies have proven that the actual 48-hour work week is nothing more than a waste of the company’s resources, such as electricity, water, paper and office supplies. It is nothing more than a waste of the moose’s humanity, a drain on his health and life, and besides, work no longer requires the preparation of documents or production tools as before, most of the work has become a digital transaction, and what used to require. Today, two hours of work can be done in a quarter of an hour at the touch of a button.

The sister countries of the UAE and some Islamic countries have implemented the new weekend system, and some countries are even considering delaying Friday prayers by a full hour. There are also 8 major countries that have implemented the new weekend idea, but with 4 days off a week, namely: Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal. These rich practical experiences have achieved amazing and satisfactory results in a large number of large companies.

The new weekend experience shortens the working day and hours, increases day and night shifts, and the most important desirable results are: increased productivity, lower unemployment, job creation, organized social life, and fewer sleep problems. Tensions between colleagues at work continue to accumulate, sick leave has decreased, and workers are less likely to shirk their responsibilities and idle away their time under pressure to escape long, hard, and tiring working hours.

In addition to the launch of privatization and the approval of amendments to the retirement and social security systems, I believe that there are other indicators that somehow pave the way for the implementation of the new weekend, such as the General Authority for Investment’s efforts to find adequate facilities that could make the Saudi market an attractive environment for foreign capital, the postponement of the first prayer time so that it is separated from the second prayer by 10 minutes, and my sermons and Friday prayers should not be shortened. This time there was a rush – as we are used to – to deny the news of the imminent implementation (of the new weekend)!