The Effect of the New Working Days System on Employees Productivity in Sharjah

Purpose: The performance of human resources has a significant contribution to improving the UAE's success. This study focuses on the new working policy of the emirate of Sharjah; the Sharjah government has recognized a fall in employee performance. Methodology: This study is based on a mixed research approach. This study focuses on both qualitative and quantitative aspects. This study includes a qualitative analysis for designing the literature review. The study includes the observation of about 15 research articles. Findings: The findings of this study support the implication of a new working-based system in other Emirates, too, because it has a very positive impact on employee satisfaction and motivation and overall improved organizational performance.


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The Effect of the New Working Days System on Employees Productivity in Sharjah Nabil Ayoub and Dr. Meera Al-Marri

INTRODUCTION
The United Arab Emirates is a leading and multi-diversified economy.Different industries are progressively transforming the UAE's petroleum-based economy towards sustainable businesses.The performance of human resources has a significant contribution to improving the UAE's success.This study focuses on the new working policy of the emirate of Sharjah; the Sharjah government has recognized a fall in employee performance.The observation of employees' activities and performance has inspired the authorities to redesign the working days system.The updated working day policy has four four-day working schedules from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm, and the new working days policy has a three-day long weekend.This policy has significantly changed the performance of organizations in Sharjah city.This extra-long weekend of 3 days provides enough time for employees and working individuals to pursue their hobbies and activities.
This study discussed the different impacts of the new working days system on the performance and productivity of employees, job satisfaction, social participation, work-life balance, communication, innovation, and creativity or project-based activities in Sharjah.The new working day system has a positive influence on improving the performance of employees, and it also enhances the employee's motivation to work.The literature review focuses on discussing scholarly remarks.The study is based on a mixed research approach, and the analysis has been performed by observing the facts from the developed questionnaire.Qualitative analysis is performed to form the literature review, and quantitative analysis this performed to observe the facts from the questionnaire.The questionnaire is designed to analyse the different themes designed for the literature review.The questionnaire contains 10 questions on subject themes related to new working days' systems in Sharjah.The findings of this study support the implication of a new working-based system in other Emirates, too, because it has a very positive impact on employee satisfaction and motivation and overall improved organizational performance too (Khoori & Hamid, 2022).

LITERATURE REVIEW
The literature review is developed by observing the scholarly remarks of different articles and journals.The literature review focuses on the seven themes related to human resource management and employee productivity by implementing the new policy of the new working day system in Sharjah.A new working day policy has been implemented in 2021.The literature review is developed by observing the impacts of the new working days policy on Sharjah City.This literature review focuses on the main factors that are based on employees' productivity due to the new working system (Khoori & Hamid, 2022).

Productivity
The new working system has enhanced the productivity of organizations by increasing the employee's motivation to work by developing a work-life balance.The productivity of employees is based on the efficient achievement of tasks.The basic purpose of introducing a new working system is to enhance the productivity of employees.This policy has an available impact on improving the productivity of employees by 88%.The new working system is based on 3-day weekend, which makes people better performers in the workplace (Karim, 2020).This policy has a great impact on achieving the desired objectives of the Sharjah Executive Council.It has a very positive impact in reducing absenteeism and the success of the employees by 46%.Now employees are more active in their day-to-day activities at the workplace and regularly performing their duties (Fahmi & Ali, 2022).

Performance
This policy has a positive influence on making people more efficient and coordinated within the firm by reducing communication barriers that delay projects.It influences the overall performance of workers and makes them more satisfied (Tseng & Levy, 2018).The working days and working hour systems have a strong influence on employees' performance.The new working day system has improved the performance of individuals, which enhances organizational performance too.This has improved the activities and efforts of individuals to achieve organizational performance milestones.The new working days system has improved performance by encouraging people by increasing their motivation (Tseng & Levy, 2018).The new working day systems are inspiring for people because they have better time management at the workplace.

Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is critical for employees because satisfied workers have better performance compared to unsatisfied workers.Satisfaction impacts performance by making people more competent and professional in the workplace.The new working system has improved employees' satisfaction by providing more time in fewer working days, which makes them more proficient in routine activities.The new working days' policy also has a very favourable outcome in improving employees' job satisfaction.Job satisfaction is the feeling people have when they are satisfied with their job activities and compensation systems.The new policy has improved employees' job satisfaction by 90%, and it has also improved personal satisfaction at the workplace by 98% (Gudep, 2019).This overall satisfaction level increase has a positive influence on the employee's attitude at the workplace.Employee satisfaction and job satisfaction are very useful in making them more responsible and efficient in preforming their duties without delays.It also enhances the delegation of power and authority among workers (ASLAN, 2021).

Social Participation
It has been observed that working professionals are not socially active.These people have professional preferences, which reduces the social activities in UAE.This new policy has a positive influence on time management, and individuals have more to contribute to social and family gatherings (Tweedie et al., 2018).Social participation is the involvement of individuals in social activities and gatherings.Social participation has a positive influence on improving a person's bonding with the community.This extra-long weekend of 3 days provides enough time for employees and working individuals to pursue their hobbies and activities, which have often been neglected (Cherian et al. 2021).The employees of Sharjah City are happier with this modified schedule, and they can continue with their personal hobbies.62% of individuals actively participate in their hobbies, which makes them fresher and more active.It also has a positive impact on improving social gatherings by 70% to provide time for meeting and enjoying social events with people.(Cherian et al. 2021).This strategy also has a positive impact on providing the scope of commercial projects for the employees.52% of employees are also working on commercial projects in their extra time to earn extra income.Thus, the overall policy of the new working days system has a positive influence on social gatherings and individuals' income.(Wood et al., 2020).

Work-life Balance
Excessive work delays and poor work performance have negatively impacted the work-life balance of employees.Individuals are unable to achieve satisfactory performance due to personal and professional issues.The new working day system provides a balance between professional and personal activities, which enhances work-life balance.Work-life balance is the basic need of every working individual.Work-life balance is a situation where individuals have a good mental and psychological association with their personal and professional activities.There is a work-life balance when a person has significant time to pursue their professional and personal commitments.This leads to employee's satisfaction and makes them happier with their job (Ofori-Attah, 2020).Work-life balance is necessary because the imbalance can lead to many issues in personal and professional life.This new policy has had a positive impact and improved the work-life balance by 84%.The lack of work-life balance has many issues.It is related to the employee's job satisfaction and makes them less productive.It can lead to absenteeism and burnout from the workplace (Karim, 2020).

Communication
Within organizations, communication has a significant impact on discussing information and queries.The new working day system has improved communication among internal organizational employees of different departments to frequently update and collaborate.Furthermore, communication is essential in business organizations because it makes the management aware of employees' problems and feedback from customers.Communication also improves the clarity of the tasks and roles of employees (Dale & Tina, 2019).It makes the employees more participative, and they have better communication with their peers as well as others to rapidly share ideas and opinions in the organization.The policy has a strong impact on improving communication by 81% in the workplace.Communication has been improved from the upward and backward sides to successfully work with multiple stakeholders.The communication barrier is reduced due to an improved sense of responsibility and sharing of information in the workplace (Ali and Anwar, 2021).

Innovation and Creativity
Innovation and creativity are important in businesses to provide more valuable products or services to the community.Creativity and innovation have a significant impact on improving the employee's performance.Creativity and innovation are the processes of thinking and doing tasks with new techniques and ways to make them more enriching and useful (Mehmood et al., 2022).Employees have become more creative, and they have a better workday schedule that makes them relaxed, responsible, active, and energetic.The new workday's policy has a very positive influence in developing creativity and innovation in employees.This policy has improved creativity and innovation by 76% (Rampa and Agogué 2021).

Project-based Activities
Globalization and the pandemic have improved project-based activities within firms.Now, organizations are transforming their performance toward project-based activities, which ensures the best participation of highly skilful resources.This policy also has a positive impact on improving teamwork and project coordination among employees.The workers became more energetic in doing corrective and team-based jobs with enthusiasm and passion for learning and growing collectively by synergic coordination with each other.This is very useful in project-based organizations to motivate people with their creative and inspirational tasks (Shafique and Al Hadid, 2022).

Literature Gap
From the above-mentioned literature review, the studies have some gaps which include individual-level demographic, factors including gender, age, nationality, and family structure.Moreover, the number of dependents was not taken into account by the previous researchers.It is recommended to analyse a more complex picture regarding the effects of working hours on employee performance.In addition to this, another gap in the previous research is the selection of the single variables.Both Qualitative and quantitative require prolonged effort and have negative effects on the body and mind.If an employee faces workload issues then they ultimately show detachment and burnout with the work as a self-defence mechanism to stress.This study is guided by structural theory which states that burnout develops as a reaction to ongoing workplace stress and happens when an individual's coping mechanisms for handling job stress become ineffective (Edú-Valsania, Laguía, & Moriano, 2022).The employee adopts a depersonalization attitude as a new coping mechanism.Therefore, it is necessary to reduce some of the stress and workload by minimizing the working hours in a week.Whereas, future research might consider longer-term data collection methods and more intricate ways to gauge how employees react to work-life balance based on four working days in a week.

Research Design
The research methodology is about the process of doing the research for designing a study.

Research Method
There are two types of research designs quantitative and qualitative research.Quantitative research is based on quantitative tools and techniques of observing the information from the data set.The quantitative analysis can be performed by using different software such as SPSS to generate statistical results such as Anova regression and other analyses.Qualitative research is a process of using qualitative tools and techniques to analyse the facts from the dataset.The qualitative analysis can be performed by using descriptive ways or content analysis.This study is based on a mixed research approach.This study focuses on both qualitative and quantitative aspects.This study includes a qualitative analysis for designing the literature review.The study includes the observation of about 15 research articles.The study also includes a quantitative analysis performed by using Microsoft Excel and SPSS.

Data Collection
Data collection is an important process of doing the research.Generally, the data can be obtained in two ways, primary or secondary data.The primary data has been gathered through surveys, questionnaires, interviews, and observations.The secondary data is already available in information on the internet or other sources.The secondary data can be paid or freely available.The study majorly focuses on primary data for analysis.Data has been observed by designing a questionnaire that focuses on the major themes of the literature review.The responses are obtained for the Google form questionnaire.

Targeted Population and Sample Size
The targeted population of this study consisted of organizational employees working 4 days a week in the vicinity of Sharjah.We have gathered 21 responses; however, our sample size was 25.However, three participants did not fill up the questionnaire and refused to participate in this study.

Questionnaire
The questionnaire for the research "How does the new working days' system affect employee's productivity in Sharjah" is based on the following 10 questions.The questionnaires were distributed by using Google Form questionnaires to get the responses from respondents.
i. Does the working days impact the employee's productivity?ii.Has the new working days system of Sharjah enhanced the productivity of employees?iii.Are the new working day systems in Sharjah having a positive influence on the job satisfaction of employees?iv.
The new working days system of Sharjah has provided an opportunity for social interactions and improved social communication.v.Is the new working days' system improved the work-life balance for the employees?vi.
Is the new working days system improved the communication within organizations by improving the coordination among workers?vii.
The new working days system has enhanced creativity and innovation within employee performance.viii.Is the new working days system develop the project-based activities at the workplace?ix.Is the new working days system beneficial for overall improving the performance of firms in Sharjah?x.Is the new working days system to be implemented in all of the UAE?

Data Analysis
Data analysis is a process of analysing the data set and developing the findings.The data analysis can be performed by using different techniques.The responses to questionnaires have been analysed by using statistical techniques and graphical observations.The quantitative analysis is performed by using statistical observations, which can be done using different software.This study includes quantitative analysis and includes statistical analysis using SPSS and Microsoft Excel.

FINDINGS
The data analysis has been performed by using SPSS to generate the descriptive analysis and ANOVA for responses to questionnaires.
The descriptive statistics show the data is accurate and no missing value is found.
The results of ANOVA statistics show a p-value greater than 0.5.It shows the new working day system has a positive influence on improving the productivity of workers.4. The new working days system of Sharjah has provided an opportunity for social interactions and improved social communications.61% of individuals agree with this opinion.
5. The new working day systems in Sharjah have positively influenced the job satisfaction of employees.The majority of 51% of individuals agree with this opinion.
6.The new working days system of Sharjah has provided an opportunity for social interactions and improved social communications.61% of individuals agree with this opinion.
7. The majority of respondents, or 57% of individuals, believe the new working day system has improved the work-life balance.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Improving the performance of workers is the major objective for every organization.The UAE Emirates Sharjah recognizes a decline in employee performance.The municipality of Sharjah has redesigned its working system to improve the performance of workers.The newly designed working system has boosted the productivity of organizations, and it has positively achieved performance goals.The study also focuses on observing the impacts of new working our system by reviewing the literature.The study also includes a concise survey to analyse the major themes of literature that relate to the performance of workers due to new working hour systems.The findings of the analysis show the new working hour system has positively improved productivity, and it should be implemented in other Emirates too.Corresponding with the aims of the study we have investigated the impact of working days in a week on the overall performance of employees in an organization.In this study an overall measure highlighting the job satisfaction level as one of the main outcomes of maintainable organizational policies.Within the literature review, it has been observed that employees with four working days tend to be more motivated and dedicated to their performance.By implementing the structural theory, the employees were offered a balance between professional and personal life which leads to the reduction of job burnout and exhaustion and improves the well-being of the organization with positive values.Lastly, future research might consider longer-term data collection methods and more intricate ways to gauge how employees react to work-life balance based on four working days in a week.Furthermore, more precision in the origins and consequences of healthy work-life balance at some independent levels should be emphasized in future research.