Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it is currently testing a new work system which allows its employees to stay on the job for only four hours during one of the five working days.

The flagship unit of the country’s biggest conglomerate introduced the system for the first time last month in some departments such as the Digital Media and Communications research and development center in Suwon and the semiconductor research center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province.

“We decided to give it a grace period of three months from April to June because of the risky aspect, meaning it will officially be introduced in around July,” said Kevin Won, executive vice president of the corporate human resources team at Samsung.

“It will be finalized by June on whether we will proceed with the new working system.”

According to Won, about 10-20 percent of the workforce in the two research centers currently works five to six hours on one of the five working days, with Friday being the most favored. They, however, still need to fulfill the requirement to work at least 40 hours per week.

This indicates that the employees could choose to work nine hours for four working days in order to have one day with the four-hour minimum.

The company had mandated its employees to stay on the job for over eight hours every day in the past.

Samsung’s move is likely to have an impact on other firms serving in various industries if it goes ahead with its decision to apply the new work system in all of its affiliates. The electronics unit is the first company to test the minimum-four-hour system here in Korea.

“We may look into spreading it to other affiliates if the results of the three-month test turn out to be positive,” said another Samsung official.

The firm previously launched a smart working system, which included the flexible work system, beginning in January 2009 in some business sectors like TV, wireless devices and set products. It then expanded the system to all business sectors a year later in 2010.

The flexible work system enables its employees to check into the company anytime from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. as long as they work up to nine hours per day.

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)