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In Sweden, an Experiment Turns Shorter Workdays Into Bigger Gains

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Jackpot

Banned
I work 4 hours a day and my output matches that of my 8 hour colleagues. Shit, sometimes i find myself with nothing to do.
 

Keasar

Member
This sounds very okay in concept, but I work for money and not for fun.

So unless "society" drastically raise wages I don't see this getting much traction anywhere.

Wouldn't 6 hour work days be cheaper for Companies as you just pay for 6 instead of 8

But life changed when Svartedalens was selected for a Swedish experiment about the future of work. In a bid to improve well-being, employees were switched to a six-hour workday last year with no pay cut. Within a week, Mr. Perez was brimming with energy, and residents said the standard of care was higher.

They earned the same wage as a regular 8-hour employee. The idea is you get the same pay, work less but more efficient hours, get more time to spend at home and therefore are more motivated to work without having to worry about reduced income.
 

Dio

Banned
This week, having done a 24-hour shift and then going to sleep and then doing a 12 hour shift and having seven hours to sleep and doing another 12 hour shift and going to sleep for 7 hours and doing another 12-hour shift with no overtime pay...

Sure would be nice if I got the exact same paycheck for that job working 6 hours a day, but my job doesn't qualify for overtime pay and I like having the money from the extra hours. Basically, my paycheck is as big as the hours at work rather than being set.
 
my most productive hours are the first hour I am in at work and the last hour I am in at work.

Im mainly in the office for 10hrs a day. My most productive hours are when there are no others around to bug me, ask questions, etc.
 
This week, having done a 24-hour shift and then going to sleep and then doing a 12 hour shift and having seven hours to sleep and doing another 12 hour shift and going to sleep for 7 hours and doing another 12-hour shift with no overtime pay...

Sure would be nice if I got the exact same paycheck for that job working 6 hours a day, but my job doesn't qualify for overtime pay and I like having the money from the extra hours. Basically, my paycheck is as big as the hours at work rather than being set.
You get 7 hours of sleep? How do you do that? I can only manage like 5 straight hours of sleep.
 

Dalek

Member
I'm a heavy sleeper. I slept through a car crash outside the house once.

If you let me, I'll sleep for 12 hours straight.

I hear you-If I didn't have anything to get up for, I could probably sleep for 48 hours straight. I have a 8 year old kid, I haven't "slept in" really in almost a decade now.
 

kinoki

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
Living in Sweden and this is the best thing ever. We have a policy of working 9 to 5 but no one is actually working them. Most people just work 6 hours a day. It's only if we have a strict deadline or a project. The owners are thinking of instituting 6 hour days officially.
 

hateradio

The Most Dangerous Yes Man
Living in Sweden and this is the best thing ever. We have a policy of working 9 to 5 but no one is actually working them. Most people just work 6 hours a day. It's only if we have a strict deadline or a project. The owners are thinking of instituting 6 hour days officially.
But then you'll cut two hours.

That will be four hours. But then you'll cut two more hours.

Finally, you'll only work two hours, but then decide to work zero hours.

In the end you'll all be on welfare, you lazy Swedes!


(I love Sweden.)
 
For the service industry this sounds very good. But how would it go in things like manufacturing and construction? Would think some sectors can benefit from this, due to better productivity during those hours. But others would just need to hire more people to get the same amount of work done.

They'd be exempt of course. More proof that office life is the best life.

US companies will compensate by making everyone work Saturday too!
 
For the service industry this sounds very good. But how would it go in things like manufacturing and construction? Would think some sectors can benefit from this, due to better productivity during those hours. But others would just need to hire more people to get the same amount of work done.

Espencially in manufacturing and construction are short working days useful. The productivity sinks in the last hours and also the risk of work accidents increases rapidly in the 8-10h working days they have now.
 

segasonic

Member
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PopeReal

Member
Tend to agree. I worked a 5-hour schedule last summer and that seemed perfect to me. Enough work that my day felt full but enough leisure that I could tend things on the homefront well too.

Hopefully this becomes a norm in America sometime in my working life (i'll hit retirement age in the 2050s)

Lol never. Just look at the scorn people get around here for not wanting to stay late and work even more. Americans by and large have bought into the corporate structure of hours spent being the main measuring stick of how hard of worker you are.
 

kinoki

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
But then you'll cut two hours.

That will be four hours. But then you'll cut two more hours.

Finally, you'll only work two hours, but then decide to work zero hours.

In the end you'll all be on welfare, you lazy Swedes!

(I love Sweden.)

And we just instituted one lab day per week. So unless we have a strict deadline we can do whatever we want one day of the week.

It's awful I tell you.
 

Alienous

Member
I wonder how much of that is transitional relief.

Like, how long until 6 hours has you staring at your watch for 4?
 

KingBroly

Banned
I wonder how much of that is transitional relief.

Like, how long until 6 hours has you staring at your watch for 4?

Well, presumably at 4 hours you have lunch, so you're not really watching the clock I guess.

But I imagine over time it'll devolve into what happens with 8-10 hour workdays.
 
I wonder how much of that is transitional relief.

Like, how long until 6 hours has you staring at your watch for 4?

Get to work.

Chat with co-workers about "work related issues".

Turn on youtube to an 80's B movie like Man's Best Friend or The Perfect Weapon.

Go to lunch.

Start getting ready to go home for the day.
 

poutmeter

Member
Somehow, I managed to convince the management to let me work 7-4 instead of the 9-6 shifts they have for most employees. It's still 8 hours of work (+1h lunch break), but starting and finishing the work day earlier made such a huge difference in my energy levels and overall well-being. Six hours of work sounds heavenly, but guess I'll make do with what I have for now.
 

Monocle

Member
Well duh. Anecdotally, I was always way more productive when I worked a series of short shifts. I have loads of energy, but who's going to do better than decent work on the seventh hour of their work day? The 40 hour work week is obviously not designed to promote efficient performance and the well being of employees.
 
I literally just got into an argument with my father in law about this tonight. He said I was too much of an idealist.

But basically my "novel idea" was that there is a hidden cost to treating employees like shit. Both retail and people who work yearly salaries.

Say you work a yearly salary person like an animal. They are more likely to get burnt out and be less productive.

Say you treat your retail/food service employees like shit, then they are more likely to quit. After all you sent the message to them that they are disposable. But the hidden cost is that you are gonna have to spend more time and resources hiring and training someone new to replace them when you could've just treated them with respect.

Isn't it just a totally radical idea that if we great people with dignity and respect that they will be happy. And happy people are generally productive people.
 

Future

Member
If you have kids, 8 hr work days is almost madness. Literally no time for anything. I'm amazed people even have families. Seriously

Single? You can deal. No other responsibilities. Work and then have fun.

Kids? Then you work, come home and do more work essentially. More people in the house means more maintenance, groceries to get, food to make, trash to clean, and things to do at any moment.
 

SoCoRoBo

Member
I think this is a pretty fab idea in theory, and glad Sweden is going to be the one to collect all that valuable data that policymakers can trot out for the next however many years.

I can think of lots of industries where this is not going to work at all, but even in the most competitive, high-hour law firms, it's ridiculous that a culture is promoted which is completely anathema to how human beings actually function.
 

Moosichu

Member
I literally just got into an argument with my father in law about this tonight. He said I was too much of an idealist.

But basically my "novel idea" was that there is a hidden cost to treating employees like shit. Both retail and people who work yearly salaries.

Say you work a yearly salary person like an animal. They are more likely to get burnt out and be less productive.

Say you treat your retail/food service employees like shit, then they are more likely to quit. After all you sent the message to them that they are disposable. But the hidden cost is that you are gonna have to spend more time and resources hiring and training someone new to replace them when you could've just treated them with respect.

Isn't it just a totally radical idea that if we great people with dignity and respect that they will be happy. And happy people are generally productive people.

Yeah it's weird. There's a strange anti-scientific strand of thought that people idealise bad things and want them to be true. Some people seem to want torture to work. Somr people seem to want hitting your kids to be the best way of bringing them up. They want gruelling work hours to be the best thing going.
 
I literally just got into an argument with my father in law about this tonight. He said I was too much of an idealist.

But basically my "novel idea" was that there is a hidden cost to treating employees like shit. Both retail and people who work yearly salaries.

Say you work a yearly salary person like an animal. They are more likely to get burnt out and be less productive.

Say you treat your retail/food service employees like shit, then they are more likely to quit. After all you sent the message to them that they are disposable. But the hidden cost is that you are gonna have to spend more time and resources hiring and training someone new to replace them when you could've just treated them with respect.

Isn't it just a totally radical idea that if we great people with dignity and respect that they will be happy. And happy people are generally productive people.
There's a very visible gain though, paying them increasingly less.
 

ramparter

Banned
Many studies have shown that the 6 hour work day is optimal. Actually most work drops in efficiency drastically starting with hour 5 and then go lower and lower. The last 3 hours of the average work day barely have any output.
So true, I work in IT after the first 5-6 hours I become way less productive even when there's work to be done. I honestly believe that if I worked 6 hours I'd have the same output.
 

Go_Ly_Dow

Member
I'll be looking for a 30hour per week contract in my longterm career. Might be tough to find that in the UK, but I'm sure those opportunities exist.
 

Hackbert

Member
i would be already happy if my workdays would be just 8 hours. most the days its 10-12. that 5 (more so 6 ) days the week.. yeah, i would love that 6 hour system ^^
 

Defuser

Member
This is very dependent of what kind of industry and the type of job. Some industries can't work on a 6 hour day.
 
I've done this, as an engineer, and nobody noticed because my work was getting done, but it's not good for promotions when as you go up the ladder the "work" becomes meetings and producing Office documents which takes forever.
 

Pifje

Member
I work as an IT consultant, and the 8 hours does feel most of the days like just extending 6 hours of actual work time into walking from a place to another, getting coffee, going to the bathroom, chitchatting with others, looking at the clock, going 15-30 minutes early to home anyways, or just looking through some old emails.

There are, of course, some days when the 8 hours is busy as hell when having meetings, going to the client, developing something or building concepts and demos, but this happens maximum 1-2 days a week.

So, for me a six hour "normal day" and 8 hour busy "overtime" day would be pretty much optimal already.
 
Many studies have shown that the 6 hour work day is optimal. Actually most work drops in efficiency drastically starting with hour 5 and then go lower and lower. The last 3 hours of the average work day barely have any output.
I've been saying this for a while now but we need to get some jobs, salaried probably at first, to six hours as the expectation. Hell, I'll usually leave at 7.75 hours just because by hour 6 my brain is done.
 

Kazuhira

Member
Is that including lunch time? if so,it would be almost like a part-time job.
I might as well work at home since my commute would take almost the same amount of time,not very productive in my case.
 
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