Posted on 10/02/2015 6:48:54 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Sweden, birthplace of ABBA, IKEA, and Volvo, may soon have another celebrated export: the 6-hour workday.
The practice is not yet universal, but companies across multiple sectors report positive results from the shorter day.
Brath, a tech startup, made the move three years ago for its 22 employees. Maria Bråth, the CEO, says her firm has tracked productivity and found that her team exceeds output when compared to similar tech shops. One of the biggest advantages is that it helps them hire and keep employees, Ms. Brath writes in a blog post:
We also believe that once you’ve gotten used to having time for the family, picking up the kids at daycare, spending time training for a race or simply just cooking good food at home, you don’t want to lose that again. We believe that this is a good reason to stay with us and not only because of the actual impact longer hours would make in your life but for the reason behind our shorter days.... We actually care about our employees.
"I think the eight-hour workday is not as effective as one would think," says Linus Feldt, CEO of Stockholm-based app developer Filimundus, which adopted the 6-a-day practice last year, in an interview with Fast Company. "To stay focused on a specific work task for eight hours is a huge challenge."
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
How about we settle on actually having jobs first.
There is a lot of unproductive time: meetings that could have been handled with a single email, waiting for people to show up at same meetings, non-essential paperwork that has no real value. If I could eliminate those, I would be much more productive.
However, this won't work for jobs where someone has to be "available" for the entire shift: retail jobs, customer service, assembly lines, etc. It would only work for jobs where the person is able to manage his own time and tasking.
so...when i worked in the graphics center which was open 24/7 and i was the supervisor, there would be FOUR shift changes in a day?
As it was, there were 3 shift changes, which is still difficult because if a person leaving didn’t finish working on the banker’s document using Word and PowerPoint, he/she would have to explain it FULLY to the next person from the next shift.
Also, it was hourly pay. Would Lazard, Citi, or Chase pay the same salary for six hours?
a resounding no.
Sure. If the immigrants don’t have to work, why should the natives? 6 hours is just a start.
Well heck yeah. Any differential in their pay will be made up by government largess. I mean it’s all free money isn’t it? Sheesh...... Someone posted something on mrs. rktman’s facebook page that basically said “Oh, you got a 40 hour job? I remember MY first part time job.” Lucky folks who do have 40 hour/wk jobs. During my career we never saw a 2080 hour year which is standard. A couple of years we came close to 3000 hours. :>}
It depends on whether or not the people actually work during those 6 hours.
I remember back in an undergrad human resource management class learning that most employees, when you take out coffee breaks, lunch, bathroom breaks, chatting with co-workers, check the newspaper (I guess that would now be e-mail and Facebook), the average worker actually works only 2.5 hours per day.
So 6 hours could theoretically translate to more hours actually worked if workers could be convinced to not waste as much time as they do in an 8 hour day. (But I doubt it)
In search of the perfect worker bee for the State.
How about No hours work week—You can have Germans do all the work like mailing out welfare checks and policing the streets?
How about No hours work week—You can have Germans do all the work like mailing out welfare checks and policing the streets?
It’s rare that I’ve been to a productive meeting. They are designed to stroke the ego of the person who scheduled the meeting.
You’re right. Once I read the article, it made sense.
8 hour work day
- 1 hour lunch
- 2 15 minute breaks
= 6.5 hour actual work day
these guys
6 hour work day
- 30 minute break
= 5.5 hour work day
They asked their workers to cut out all social media and personal distractions. (Lots of wasted time eliminated there) and the company pulled back on weekly meetings and bureaucratic BS.
Now, people want to keep their jobs. The company is losing less by having to train new hires and keeps experienced people.
Overall productivity is the same or up everywhere they’ve tried it.
It sounds like my homeschooling experiment. I couldn’t understand how I could do more in 3 hours than the schools could in 8. Once I eliminated the wasted time (lunch, switching classes, attendance in each class, distractions, etc) that the kids had in school, I was actually teaching 30 minutes MORE than the public schools.
How it would work for retail jobs, customer service, assembly lines, etc. is that, by reducing breaks, you’re really only eliminating 1 hour of actual work per shift.
But maybe, your employees are making fewer mistakes. Not losing their pep. Maintaining their speed and smile for the entire shift.
They cut their employees off of social media and reduced bureaucratic BS meetings. That’s how they improved productivity.
Why not a four hour work day? Then you can go golf the rest of the day.
Good enough for Obama...
I had a co-worker who was an American but was living in Sweden. He was visiting the USA for several months.
He loved living in Sweden because of all the vacation time.
He was also biggest deadbeat at work while was there.
Bob Slydell: You see, what we’re actually trying to do here is, we’re trying to get a feel for how people spend their day at work... so, if you would, would you walk us through a typical day, for you?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
Bob Slydell: Great.
Peter Gibbons: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can’t see me, heh heh - and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour.
Bob Porter: Da-uh? Space out?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I’m working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I’d say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
I remember back in 1962 when it was predicted the USA would have a 30 hour work week to make sure all persons in the future would have a job.
Now just a job would do!
After being self-employed for twenty years, I went to work for someone else. I was the oldest person in the agency. The boss, at my annual review, marveled at my "productivity." All employees kept timesheets, so it was a measurable quantity. I wasn't in the habit of wasting time like all the conventionally-employed younger people. I also brought in millions of dollars in billings.
Did he give me more pay or advancement? No. In fact, he made frequent "ageist" jokes, usually in front of other employees, some of them quite cruel. To him, the value of productivity and income generation vs. physical youth just didn't compute. Did I mention he was a liberal?
So, I left to work for myself again. And took some of his best clients. And made more money than when I worked for him.
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