Posted on 01/06/2020 2:27:51 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Finland has been at the forefront of flexible work schedules for years, starting with a 1996 law that gives most employees the right to adjust their hours up to three hours earlier or later than what their employer typically requires.
The country’s newly installed political leader, Sanna Marin, just upped the ante, though, proposing to put the entire country on a four-day workweek consisting of six-hour workdays.
Marin, the world’s youngest sitting prime minister and the leader of a five-party center-left coalition, said the policy would allow people to spend more time with their families and that this could be “the next step” in working life.
Marin is not the first politician to recently float the idea of scaling back work hours. Neighboring Sweden tested out six-hour work days a couple of years ago. And the UK’s Labour Party said in September that if elected, it would bring a 32-hour working week to the UK within 10 years. (It wasn’t elected, however, and details on how hours would be structured were in any case vague.) In France, the standard work week is 35 hours, reduced from 39 hours in 2000.
A slew of companies around the world have been running their own experiments lately. Perpetual Guardian, a small New Zealand firm that helps clients manage financial estates, trialed a four-day work week before formally adopting the policy in November 2018. Its CEO, Andrew Barnes, is now an evangelist for the idea. In Ireland, a recruiting firm called ICE Group shifted to a four-day workweek and found that people’s habits changed, with staffers taking fewer breaks and checking social media less often.
Both firms are small—Perpetual Guardian trialed the schedule with 240 employees; ICE Group has a staff of about 50 people in Ireland. But larger companies have been experimenting, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
I could think of 24 hours of work to do with her.
Well, maybe those fin folk need more time to go swimming.
I’d need, NEED, a second job to pay the bills if I was hourly.
I wish we had 4 day work weeks.
P.S. I want to make babies with her...
I keep looking for the rainbow unicorn that shoots skittles out its rear.
WOW what a great idea!!
An employee earns $50,000 per year for 40 hrs work and suddenly has his work week chopped by 40% to 24 hrs and still gets paid the same $50,000 with benefits!!
What could go wrong?
Nice, but why stop at 4 days. Why not 3 days?
Not Guilty!
12 of the 19 ministers in her five party coalition cabinet are women.
Marin is a Social Democrat from the city of Tampere.
I think they still work 40 hours per week. Except it will be more than the standard 8 hours a day. It will now be officially 10 hours a day.
The question is will productivity increase or go down. You have a 6 hour workday how much will get done?
Eventually we'll get there as well, shorter work weeks and shorter work days being the trend throughout all of human history.
I call it the "Star Trek" future in which computers and machines do most of the work. A small population of highly-educated technicians are needed only to ensure the machines are running smoothly. Most of our time is freed up for leisure or scholarly pursuit.
The problem will be what to do with the vast population of laborers whose skills are no longer needed?
So, your children can ride the short bus?
Intelligence comes from the mother.
...And free avocado toast and quinoa bowls for the whole population.
ROFL
I’m liking you more and more :)
A small, homogeneous country can get away with this kind of experimentation. It may work.
So my idea is to have six day work weeks consisting of two hours a day.
Possibilities:
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