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Japan is notorious for its long working hours, which have been blamed for a national health crisis known as "karoshi" -- death from overwork.

Panasonic hopes to curb this, instructing its 100,000-ish employees to work no later than 8 p.m. each day, reports Asahi Shimbun.

This hour reduction still enables a 55-hour working week, but the directive from Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga also limited overtime to 80 hours a month.

The company isn't the first to encourage a better work-life balance for its employees. There's an initiative throughout Japan called Premium Friday, which encourages firms to let staff out of the office around 3 p.m. on the last Friday of each month.

Over in the US, Amazon last year tested a 30-hour work week after a New York Times report that depicted it as a "challenging, even merciless place to work."