I'm wondering why they didn't begin with 7 hours, if it should have been expected that more money would have been spent. I feel the world is so wrapped in money that we are stuck choosing money over wellbeing...
Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week
71–80 of 211 posts
Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week
#72I imagine the optimal working day depends on the work one is doing. I used to work 8 hour shifts at Circuit City and leave with plenty of energy. But 8 hours of solid coding leaves me exhausted. I'm more curious to see the results of Amazon's 30 hr work week because I believe that includes developers.
In the article though, the benefits to nurses weren't disputed. It was a success from a quality of life perspective. Costs were the issue. Possible that costs might vary from role to role, but that's less satisfying if the goal is to improve life.
It also mentioned patient care was improved, which is important because it establishes that the gains went beyond the employees who got two extra hours of free time. That could establish the groundwork for some similar studies in different disciplines where perhaps the costs don't increase in the same ways.
Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week
#73They're abandoning it because of an obvious requirement? Did someone not realize that in a 24 hour operation that consists of physical activities, cutting hours would require more people to carry the same workload?
It was kind of a weird scenario to test this in. Regardless of productivity gains number of hours staff would need to be on hand will of cause remain the same, if nothing else do to regulations. Still there might have been a ton of complaining, had they tested on staff in public administration.
I'm a huge fan of the idea of shorter work weeks, it's obvious that some jobs won't be able to introduce them without cost. Also, assuming Sweden and Denmark aren't to different at this point, there might not actually be enough skill people walking around without jobs to fill in the gaps in the sectors where people are required to be present, regardless to productivity boosts.
Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week
#74So, 1.5 million US dollars over two years (less, if you account for the saved unemployment costs. ref. trynewideas comment), for happier employees and better care. I personally have a hard time seeing this as any form of indication that it's "spiraling out of control". I agree with other commenters, this smells of politics more than economics.
The hope of the study was likely to show a net financial benefit after making the change.
Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week
#75I imagine the optimal working day depends on the work one is doing. I used to work 8 hour shifts at Circuit City and leave with plenty of energy. But 8 hours of solid coding leaves me exhausted. I'm more curious to see the results of Amazon's 30 hr work week because I believe that includes developers.
And truthfully, it is going to depend on the person to at least some extent as well. IMO, anything that doesn't include being at work as part of your actual job duties should have no number of required work hours. You either get enough work done or you don't. If you aren't getting the expected amount of work done, then you'll eventually get fired. If you can out perform everyone else on the team and work 8 hours a we…
At least part of most people's job is being available, however. If you work on a team or are even nominally in a support role, you've got to be available for questions, meetings, collaboration, and so on. Very few people at places I've worked in the past have a job that can be easily defined by "I cranked this many widgets, now I can go."
Additionally, the 40 hour week protects people who got a difficult task from being held over. I realize there are stories of working 80 hours a week, but in my experience most people leave at 40 hours, which forces managers and sales people to set realistic delivery dates based on those hours.
Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week
#76They're abandoning it because of an obvious requirement? Did someone not realize that in a 24 hour operation that consists of physical activities, cutting hours would require more people to carry the same workload?
Yeah this sentence was a bit of an anticlimax: "Preliminary results concluded that it achieved all of these aims, but the city had to employ an extra 17 staff, costing 12m kroner (£1.4m), Bloomberg reported." Am I missing something because that seems painfully obvious without even having to to undertake the experiment no? That being said I absolutely love that the Swedish government was willing to entertain such an i…
The experiment was to find any positive benefits. If you look at it from that perspective (as a research project) it makes much more sense. Before we could guess what benefits would result, but now we know.
Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week
#77This pilot was actually not 6-hour workday, but 30 hour workweek. Yes, it is true that the politicians that decided it called it for 6-hour workday, but in reality is was 30 hour workweek and nothing else, because of how the facility works with scheduling and so on (regulations etc).
Nurses worked between 5 to 7 hours on day shifts resulting in a 30 hour workweek. Night shifts was 6 to 8 hours.
I think it is important to stress this fact that it was about workweek and not workday. Almost all media reporting on this (Swedish as well) misses this fact. You have to read the report to get that.
Personally I rather work more one day and less the other. It is the flexibility over a week that is more interesting than over a day.
report after 18 months 2016-10-11
https://sverigesradio.se/diverse/appdata/isidor/files/104/75...
Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week
#78I'm wondering why they didn't begin with 7 hours, if it should have been expected that more money would have been spent. I feel the world is so wrapped in money that we are stuck choosing money over wellbeing...
Probably so the shifts could be organized better. If the nursing home runs 24 hours, it's easier to move from 8 hour shifts to 6 than to find a way for some people to be on 7 hour shifts.
Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
And truthfully, it is going to depend on the person to at least some extent as well. IMO, anything that doesn't include being at work as part of your actual job duties should have no number of required work hours. You either get enough work done or you don't. If you aren't getting the expected amount of work done, then you'll eventually get fired. If you can out perform everyone else on the team and work 8 hours a we…
So here's a question that I continually ask myself as I work at my remote, salaried 6-hour-a-day developer job that I've been doing for the last year: how do I know how much work is enough? If I gauge by productivity, that's cool... I'll just be really fast and get my stuff done and then go play banjo or whatever. But then when folks hand me a crufty WordPress site that is misbehaving and it could be anything between…
Did you negotiate the 6-hour-day up front or just...uh...you know...work 6 hours, as it were?
Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe Amazons program was something like come to work from 10:00 to 14:00 Mon-Fri. The problem with this is that I think it's a lot easier to be pressured to stay longer over the course of a week than if you only worked 3 days a week.
This is why I like Google's version, where you can work on personal projects. You are still around if people need you, but you can work on other things as well rather than burning out trying to work on one thing for 40+ hours a week.
Last I heard that 20% time thing was pretty dead in reality, or that it became 120% time, no?