Wharton Professor Says America Should Shorten the Work Day By 2 Hours (cnbc.com) 456
Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist, New York Times best-selling author, and The Wharton School's top professor, says Americans should work two hours less. Instead of the typical 9-to-5, people "should finish at 3pm," says Grant in a recent LinkedIn post. "We can be as productive and creative in 6 focused hours as in 8 unfocused hours." CNBC reports: In the LinkedIn post, Grant was weighing in on an Atlantic article about the time gap between when school and work days end, a bane for many parents. But it's not the first time Grant has given his stamp of approval to less work with more productivity. "Productivity is less about time management and more about attention management," Grant tweeted in July, highlighting an article about a successful four-day work week study. For the study, a New Zealand company adopted a four-day work week (at five-day pay) with positive results; the company saw benefits ranging from lower stress levels in employees to increased performance. In a recent blog post, billionaire Richard Branson also touted the success of a three-day or four-day work week. "It's easier to attract top talent when you are open and flexible," Branson said in the post. "It's not effective or productive to force them to behave in a conventional way."
"Many people out there would love three-day or even four-day weekends," said Branson. "Everyone would welcome more time to spend with their loved ones, more time to get fit and healthy, more time to explore the world."
"Many people out there would love three-day or even four-day weekends," said Branson. "Everyone would welcome more time to spend with their loved ones, more time to get fit and healthy, more time to explore the world."
What typical 9-5? (Score:5, Interesting)
More like 8-6 in much of the US, if not worse.
I envy people in places like France and Quebec who take their free-time seriously -- closing time is 6 pm for many business that would stay open until 8 or even 10 pm in the US.
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In France, some areas take 2 hour lunch breaks, but they work 9am to 12pm and then 2pm to 7pm.
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Yeah, it's... almost baffling how this happened. I remember having a 9-5 job a few decades ago. One day, I interviewed for a new job which I'd been told was a "standard 8 hour work day." When I started the job, I was told the hours were 9-6. I said, "I thought you said this was a standard 8 hour work day. If I work 9-6, that's 9 hours." I was told no, that's still 8 hours. I got a 1 hour lunch break, and that didn't count.
But the lunch hour always counted before. For decades of people working 9-5,
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Re:What typical 9-5? (Score:4, Interesting)
What's wrong with laziness?
Laziness has consequences. If you are willing to bear those consequences yourself, then feel free to be lazy.
The problem is that in a democracy, the lazy can vote, and they vote for bread and circuses paid for with OPM* and deficit spending.
They don't make the effort to understand the long term consequences of that because they are ... lazy.
*OPM= Other People's Money
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I am nothing, I am nobody and I am at peace, yeah most people have no idea what it means. You tell them the real opposite and they understand, well some of them. The actual opposite, 'I must be something, I must be somebody, I am always in conflict' (it has no finale it is a continuous demand). There is no balance between the two, choose one or the other, be at peace with yourself or be in conflict with everyone else.
Don't listen to the psyshos, they are driven by shit genes, no autonomic empathic response
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And to top it off, when one reduces their work day by 2 hours, that means in a typical 5 day work week, they are also losing 10 hours of pay; unless they get a raise to compensate for the lower hours.
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And to top it off, when one reduces their work day by 2 hours, that means in a typical 5 day work week, they are also losing 10 hours of pay; unless they get a raise to compensate for the lower hours.
In general workers have not realised productivity gains in their wages for around 40 years.
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People who actually get things done work long hours.
People who work inefficiently need to work long hours. People who have got things done have potentially gone home.
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Quick, name all the big tech companies of today, that originated in France.
Right. That's what I thought.
Thomson. Still one of the huge tech companies, like Philips, just not really a household name. You use French products pretty much every day if you drive a car.
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Do you believe that stores that are open 24 hours a day have employees that work 24 hours a day?
Sit down, and let me explain the concept of "work shifts" to you. If you'd ever had a job, you'd know what those are. Further, let me clue you in that 3 people working 8 hour shifts equal 24 hours, but 4 people working 6 hour shifts also equal 24 hours.
If you need
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If you need me to walk you through the math on this, let me know. I'm happy to help.
You need to go talk to the French. Their shops close early so people can have "time off", yet they have 9% unemployment.
Re: What typical 9-5? (Score:2)
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If you need me to walk you through the math on this, let me know. I'm happy to help.
You need to go talk to the French. Their shops close early so people can have "time off", yet they have 9% unemployment.
Is that figure computed on the same basis as in the USA? Are people in France who are only marginally able to work not working, but doing OK on welfare, whereas they might be working in the USA, without being better off?
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Yes 3 people working 8 hour shifts equals 24 hours and 4 people working 6 hour shifts equal 24 hours.
If I have a labor budget of $24 a day/hour I can pay 3 people $8 and hour to work for their 8 hour shifts and I can pay 4 people $6 an hour to work for their 6 hour shift. However if I pay each 6 hour worker $8 an Hour my budget has increased to $32 a day/hour. To maintain my overhead at the same level I'll have to increase my prices to make up the difference, because in a fractional profit business like ret
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If I have a labor budget of $24 a day/hour I can pay 3 people $8 and hour to work for their 8 hour shifts and I can pay 4 people $6 an hour to work for their 6 hour shift. However if I pay each 6 hour worker $8 an Hour my budget has increased to $32 a day/hour.
So it works if you pay a flat hourly rate but it doesn't if you somehow decide to pay 8 hours for 6 hours work? It seems obvious to have people work less and make the same you have to pay more but why are you like 'my worker has to have $320 a week'?
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There are headcount taxes and overhead, like unemployment insurance or ADP paycheck processing. Any benefits that you pay you are now paying to more employees, e.g. if you give each employee two weeks paid leave, going from 3 to 4 employees (3 * 8 = 24, 4 * 6 = 24) you have additional overhead of two weeks of pay per extra employee. Wages+benefits usually runs 1.25 to 1.4 times the wage rate. It costs money to hire employees, "Not every new hire will demand the entire process, but even an $8/hour employee c
Re: What typical 9-5? (Score:5, Insightful)
We are moving to self-checkout and cashierless stores. So why close at all? My local grocery store is open 24/7. The lights are on motion sensors, so no electricity is being used unless someone is walking down that aisle. There is a skeleton crew doing restocking, but I just self-checkout so I don't bother them.
Have you ever been to a 3rd world country? You will notice many many people selling a small collection of goods spread out on blankets or tables on the side of the road. This is WHY they are poor. Retail is unproductive and an economic dead end. It is a transaction cost, not a cost of producing goods or services. The larger the retail workforce, the poorer the country.
The purpose of jobs is to produce goods and services, not "keeping people busy", and retail doesn't produce anything. The sooner we can eliminate most retail jobs, the better. This will free up labor for actual productive activities.
Re: What typical 9-5? (Score:4, Funny)
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They probably live in a country where some populist government (people's republic of ...) run by a charismatic strongman promising them salvation has seized farms (perhaps murdering the farmers in the process) and industries to be run by favored cronies. The farms stop producing food and the industries stop producing goods and the people live in fear of the government and/or the government supported gangs, the poor people will pile up.
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There's a thing called a rotating schedule. 8 hours on a set number of days. Hospitals and factories use this so that when a service needed is that important e.g hospitals, or that cannot actually shut down e.g nuclear reactors, power plants, hospitals, T.V, they can have 3 sets of 8 hours or 2 sets of 12 for people to go to work so that service can continue. The problem is solved, and you can hire more people if you really need to. The reason for 8 hours is so that the day is divisible into 3 clean div
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I work in such a 24/7 industry. For such a rotation you need three people fro each position plus an additional person to cover days off. If you want a schedule that actually allows workers to consistently get weekends off you need 6 workers for each position.
That assumes at least a 40 hour work week. If you only have workers work 30 hours you would need at least 2 additional workers. Unlike other types of work productivity is not linked to worker hours, because workers are monitoring equipment that has a fi
Re: What typical 9-5? (Score:5, Interesting)
In the real world you can't just hire more people. Businesses (even non-profits like hospitals) have fixed budgets they must meet. If they hire more people the cost of production goes up and the charge for services must be increased. The same work for more money means lower productivity.
If your business isn't making enough money to pay enough people to do the job properly then you don't have a viable business and making up for it by having as few staff paid as little as possible doesn't do you any favours in the long run.
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yes. Jesus christ I'll pay more. It's fine if a McDonalds meal is $15, I'd be a lot healthier if it was.
Re: What typical 9-5? (Score:3, Insightful)
I would love to be able to do that. I'm not an idiot who wants nuclear safety inspectors to be running at half staff and sixteen hour shifts every week, and skipping inspections completely at all two days a week.
Maybe some idiots want taxi drivers to drive twenty four hour shifts every other day, and wants to take a second taxi to the emergency room after the first one crashes, where a surgeon will be on his 47th continuous hour with his hand in someone else's guts to get the shattered windshield glass out
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Yes actually, you brain-damaged libertarian dipshit.
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No, not "work related" emails. Just "work emails". And why in the world should you work on your free time?
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How long of a list of reasons do you want? Because I can go on for quite a while, starting with "career advancement" to "taking your work responsibility seriously" to "wanting to keep your job in globalized environment".
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It has very little to do with "personal requirements", unless you're talking the tiny portion of elite workers that actually have negotiating leverage with their employer.
It has to do mostly with competition which has been hyperdriven by globalisation. You're not longer just in competition with your neighbourhood workers, or even the workers in your city, or even your country. You're now in competition even with workers who work on a different continent.
And so, if there's a person somewhere in the world who
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Good on you. Hope you're not planning on getting any raises or promotions, and don't mind being the first to be made redundant when next depression occurs unless you're in the tiny minority of the people who have a clear negotiating advantage over their employees.
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"Average" is meaningless in this context, because explosion of part time low paid work in Germany is dragging the number down without actually having relevance on jobs I'm talking about.
Re:What typical 9-5? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can understand your view completely. Hence the way I ended the post you're answering to. The problem remains that globalisation has already progressed well beyond "factory workers", and there are now a lot of well educated engineers in places like China, who would love to do the work you would rather not do because you want to spend time with your family.
And while they're at it, they would also love to do the rest of your work. For less money than you are getting.
Do you see the problem?
Go for it (Score:2, Insightful)
Such ideas only work when mandated, because when you have one company where people only work four days a week, and another where they work 5+ the results are inevitable when they compete...
If you really believe it results in better work go ahead and try it out in the real world.
I do think there is something to rest and being away from a problem being helpful. However there are absolutely also times when sheer volumes of work applied over a long period of time are very useful as well.
Re:Go for it (Score:5, Insightful)
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when you have one company where people only work four days a week, and another where they work 5+ the results are inevitable when they compete...
You've never heard of shifts? How do you think a 24 hour McDonalds works? Teenagers that never leave?
Shift work not a great idea for the salaried (Score:2)
Shifts work great for McDonalds because the work is mindless and easily scalable.
Lots of professional or analytical work is not so easy to hand of between shifts, not to mention when you are talking salaried employees you would have to have benefits for far more employees if you took a shift approach. It would greatly increase your overhead so while you might then be able to keep up with other companies (assuming you could really hand off work so easily), you would still end up losing simply because you ne
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Why would four workers on six hour shifts have massively higher overhead than three on eight hour shifts?
First because there is always a cost levied per employee. Even discounting health insurance there is taxes, unemployment insurance, health and safety training and other particulars that accrue on a per employee basis, independent of the actual work.
Second because the whole point is that employees will be paid the same amount for working fewer hours. So any additional employees will require additional funds to pay their salaries.
Now if the hourly cost is not to change, then discounting the per employee overh
Yes but America ran with it (Score:3, Interesting)
You do realize that you can thank one single company for the 8 hour workday, right?
Yes I know, but the results are telling - the U.S. has been pretty much an economic powerhouse ever since, and more R&D seems to get accomplished here.
Other countries could have copied us but so far they all seem to prefer to fall into decline...
Now what DOESN'T make sense is our incredibly rigid school system.
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That's one company doing a 2 month trial.
It would be interesting to see the results of making the change permanent, after the employees don't have the incentive of "if this goes well, you can have 3 day weekends for life"
Also, get rid of "exempt" jobs... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually yeah big brother should help destroy exploitative employers.
Two things that stuck with me... (Score:5, Informative)
Working hours vs. productivity [static-economist.com]
Working hours vs. premature deaths [static-economist.com]
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Whoa. Both of these are VERY misleading graphs. The are showing data collected over a very long time frame: 20 years in the first graph, and more than 40 years in the 2nd. They are mixing data points that are DECADES APART. Over time, life expectancy and productivity have gone up, while working hours in most OECD countries have fallen. That does not mean there is any causative connection between the trends.
These graphs would be WAY more useful if there was a 3rd axis for "time".
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However, the charts aren't particularly useful. You could also conclude that people who are less productive need to work more hours in order to have a similar standard of living. You see this is cities where prices rise and the people at the
Trendline in second chart is incredibly deceptive (Score:2)
We could have had the 4-day workweek years ago (Score:2, Insightful)
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I agree: public insurance is good. Cut out the middlemen for basic insurance like Canada, UK, and Australia did decades ago.
What progressive bigotry? Coal was dying long before Obama came into office.
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Yeah the fact that everything turned around as soon as the country found out the Democrats were no longer in charge is just a coincidence.
The fact that the Atlantic endorsed Hillary Clinton has nothing to do with it's stand crediting Obama with turning around the economy, at a time (2012) when the economy hadn't actually turn around.
Poor assumption (Score:5, Insightful)
"We can be as productive and creative in 6 focused hours as in 8 unfocused hours."
Assuming people will focus more if they only work 6 hours a day.
Also assuming when people work has no impact.
A lot of people work the hours they do because they're providing a service to customers over that time period. No matter how hard they work for 6 hours won't let them answer a phone between 3 and 5 when they're not working.
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No matter how hard they work for 6 hours won't let them answer a phone between 3 and 5 when they're not working.
So employ more people? No one does anything useful with a call after 3 anyway, unless it's in a 24/7 service industry.
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People are absent from work all the time for things like holidays, medical appointments, sickness, kid's emergencies etc. If the company can't cope without them then it has a problem anyway.
For something like customer service there just needs to be someone around for the full 8 hour period, e.g. one person starts early and the other starts later and both do 6 hours.
This would also help with traffic and cut down commute times, which will also help people be less tired and more productive during those 6 hours
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Assuming people will focus more if they only work 6 hours a day.
That is a safe assumption. A lot of people are quite mental disasters towards the end of their day.
Lunch (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no such thing as a free lunch. I think this must be the most hard to learn lesson in human history. The second must be the law of supply and demand.
People keep trying to come up with ways to get around having to pay for things. Countless millions have been subject to poverty and starvation because some fool somewhere thought they could legislate there way around basic laws of economics (Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Soviet Union etc.).
You can't create something from nothing. Somebody has to pay for it with finite resources.
We humans keep trying to cheat the basic laws of economics, time and again, thinking that surely this time must be the time things will automagically work. How many millions will starve to death before this kind of foolishness is considered a crime against humanity?
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honestly - it wouldn't even take AI. Just a committment to investing more in equipment and infrastructure.
(and the money's out there: hell, we printed trillions since 2008. It's just being hoarded to make the 1% feel less anxious).
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Not everyone would starve, but you're going to begger some people. The only way this doesn't happen is if there is no loss in production as a result of less work (w
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There have been increases in productivity going back decades. How come people are still forced to work just as many hours as before?
How much is enough?
Plenty of people have little capital. But which 'millions of people will starve to death' for this 'crime against humanity' was what I replied to. Context.
Re:Lunch (Score:5, Informative)
People used to work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, from children to their deaths.
Then we negotiated the 8 hour work day.
Then we negotiated the 5 day work week.
It's actually very simple: if people work all day every day, they have no free time. If they have no free time, they don't buy things. If they don't buy things, there are no jobs.
If people don't work, they have no money. If they have no money, they don't buy things. If they don't buy things, there are no jobs.
There is an equilibrium point that maximize "people working" and "people consuming".
Seriously, Americans surprise me with their "leave it to the market" attitudes. Like for example "no vacations mandated by law". Yeah the free market doesn't solve that: Walmart doesn't give you vacations. Why would it, when it can, you now, ... not?
You guys have no vacations and no holidays. You "work hard" and your living standard is inferior to an european's, who have 1 month vacations and a few holidays sprinkled around the year.
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Re:Lunch (Score:5, Insightful)
America is the richest country in the history of the world. Try telling us again how one month vacations would cost toooo much.
FTFY. Russia has a smaller economy than Spain, and their entire defense budget is a fraction of the last increase to Pentagon pork. All those U.S. military bases across Europe are not for defense.
They're for empire.
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Europeans have 1 month vacations because America grants Europe a massive $150 billion in subsidies in the form of horribly unfair trade deals. Moreover America pays for European defense, saving their countries another ton of cash. Imagine the nice things Americans could have if they didn't have to pay for a continent of ungrateful jerks.
Are you *fucking* kidding me? European holiday is paid for by America. Yeah. Sure.
American military is several times bigger than it needs to be, it's that big because American *wants* a big military. Politically and socially you *love* your military. No politician can ever reduce it, not because of the rest of the world, but because the American people wouldn't support it.
You're honestly telling me that if European countries upped their military then Trump would cut the US's? Bullshit, you don't believe tha
Re:Lunch (Score:4, Insightful)
Good work ignoring everything I said. I'll say it again - the US has a large military because it wants one, not because the rest of the works wants it to have one.
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How can you be so ignorant? You're just a few keystrokes away from finding out everything you just spewed is bullshit.
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You are not wrong but it also wouldn't be the first time that "the way we've always done it" just isn't the most efficient one. Yes, this is counter intuitive. However, I don't think we'll know for certain whether this works unless we try it on a relevant scale.
In other words... (Score:2)
Workday is not legally mandated (Score:2)
In this free country of ours, no law requires people to stay after 3pm. Companies are free to take the good professor's advice — or ignore it.
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Yep and you're free to die under a rbridge, bankrupt from a treatable health condition.
So free.
approved+1 (Score:2)
Now that all workers are at 29 hours we don't have Health Care any more.
I have been working 3 days per week for 2 years (Score:2)
It's great! I work Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Having Tuesday off right after just one day of work is really nice, as is the 3 day weekend.
Now if I could just get some benefits...
not at my job pls. (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong: I'm all about work-life balance. But honestly, if my days were 6 hours, my projects would be perpetually unfinished, and my skills would get rusty. 8-10 is really my sweet-spot; with maybe a light friday. You start sending people home, and their effectiveness and cohesiveness as a team also suffers (if they're working as a team).
That said: I don't have any problem with remote work (for those in jobs where that can work, like software engineering). If you have the right tools, team, sk
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The problem with some people working more hours than others is that the ones working longer hours expect more pay. A solution is flexible working time. Minimum 6 hours a day, and if you do more you can take them off on Friday.
I have to say though, if you need to be working regular 10 hour days to finish your projects then you are overworked. They need to hire more people.
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He is right about working in blocks. Some jobs are like that - you are more productive if you have long periods of interrupted time working on it with intense focus. There is a startup cost to a lot of work - putting it down and picking it up takes time. Analytic work like data mining, SQL programmer, writer, graphic artist, etc. would probably fit this model.
Other jobs are more intense in a different way, and reducing the consecutive hours actually increases productivity. Things like a factory line ins
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I'm happy with anything as long as people who only want to do 6 hour shifts aren't disadvantaged.
It works where I work (Score:2)
9-3? (Score:2)
On the other hand, i left the catering industry 3 years ago. Now if you want awful shift patterns, that's the job to have. I'd work split shift 11
What about the money? (Score:3)
I'm free to work fewer hours per day right now if I want to. But I'm scrambling as fast as I possibly can to dig myself out of the hole I was born into before I die, so I don't. Are you going to force me to work less for less pay? Cause I don't want that; I could have that right now if I did. Are you going to somehow make me paid the same for less work? I don't know what magic you think will accomplish that but if you've got something bring it on.
30 minutes (Score:2)
I know lots of people at work that reduced the working hours to 30 minutes a day. What I don't get is why they usually stick around for another 7-8 hours....
Work or Slashdot? (Score:2)
For the knowledge workers posting here insisting that they need 8 hours to be productive, how many of those 8 (or 10 or 12) hours that you insist you work are spent on the web, “training”, shopping, or hanging with co-workers?
I’ve worked in software since the beginning of the web as a developer, manager, founder, and executive with highly productive teams developing technical software. You know what’s been constant regardless of the company or team? “Down time” throughou
White collar bias (Score:5, Insightful)
In the job shop / small manufacturing world I now inhabit, it takes about 1/2 hour or so to get everything going in the morning, and about the same time to shut it all down at the end of the day. So, we'd get about 70% of our current productivity if we took this approach. There are many other types of work, as stated above (ER, Medical care, Service industry), where you'd have hire 33% more workers to get coverage. Where's all that money going to come from to pay all and train all these new hires?
Some old white dude (like me) probably wrote this in a comfy office.
More focused? (Score:2)
What dream world do these people live in?
First things first... (Score:2)
So how does that work? (Score:2)
So how exactly does this work for , oh I dunno.... companies that run 24/7 such as electric generation facilities? What about service industries which are open from 9am until 9pm (ie best buy and other retailers) ?
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Wharton's top perfesser.
Has he ever worked at an off-campus job?
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At my new job, I work 8-5 with an hour off for lunch. I learned very fast that working past 5 is not possible. The owner wants to shut things down and lock up at 5.
I work at a small electronic manufacturer these days.
Re: I have the right to work... (Score:2)
You'd have more of a point in a completely competitive market but with fewer employers than employees the bosses have the advantage and labor regulation is one way to counterbalance that
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As a manager you really don't have to work more hours then your employees.
Besides even as a manager or even a boss, there probably is a few hours of downtime, where you just don't have the energy doing any work. So you either goof off in in your office. Or wander the cubes jabbing with your employees telling yourself it is some sort of team building or raising spirits. While all you are doing is distracting them because you don't want to do your work.
However to note, if those other employees who are working
BOOK: How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World (Score:2)
Download a PDF file of the book: Entire book, 312 pages [metaphysicspirit.com] (PDF file)
Review of the book. [lfb.org]