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Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

theatlantic.com

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Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#71

Post by Bahamut »

Brashman wrote: post #15
belorn wrote: post #7

> It's unclear how, or if, a lunch break will factor into the scheme. It's a common misconception that eight-hour work day means 9-17 everywhere. In Sweden, the common work day is from 8-17, meaning 8 hours paid time and 1 hour non-paid lunch hour. To my understanding, it's more or less required by law. So if you look on how many hours we will be "at work", we will go from working one hour more than Americans to one…

My experience in the US is the same. 9-5 is just a saying. More typically a work day is 9-6 or 8-5 to account for a 1 hour non-paid lunch.

I've never had that - 9-5 from my experience meant working 7 hours with a 1 hour lunch. Of course YMMV, but I don't take any employer seriously when they say otherwise - if they want to raise hell, I'd probably just walk.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#72

Post by laxatives »

belorn wrote: post #7

> It's unclear how, or if, a lunch break will factor into the scheme. It's a common misconception that eight-hour work day means 9-17 everywhere. In Sweden, the common work day is from 8-17, meaning 8 hours paid time and 1 hour non-paid lunch hour. To my understanding, it's more or less required by law. So if you look on how many hours we will be "at work", we will go from working one hour more than Americans to one…

Reading all of these comments with personal hours is kind of blowing my mind. I always thought people in tech had easy cushy jobs? Personally, I am at the office 5-6 hours a day (at a major company). Sure there are some rough weeks, but even then, 50 hours at most. Just today I was at the office from 1030 and left at 3, spending a half hour at lunch. On average, probably 35-40 hours at the office, with an hour spent playing games during lunch most days. On Fridays we might spend 2 hours at lunch and always, always ends at least 2 hours early (I might hang out at the office during this time, but never doing work). Many of the employees with kids might be at the office 3.5 days a week on average.

This is at a big company in the US.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#73

Post by theraccoundude »

themgt wrote: post #12

I'm much more productive with 10 hour work days. Get in the zone, write a shit-ton of code, and then get back to reality. Three or four 10-hour days sound a lot nicer than 5 6-hours.

I'm exactly the same. I get in the zone everyday, and 10-12 hours usually blows by like it's nothing. Glad I have a job where there's always (fun) development work to do...I don't understand how 6 hours a day could ever be enough though

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#74

Post by gregpilling »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #10
steveridout wrote: post #2

Six-hour days may be more productive, but this won't prove it one way or the other because: - The people working six hour days have been told that this may improve productivity so the excitement of being part of the experiment may indeed encourage them to be more effective in the short term - They have a strong incentive to work harder because if the experiment concludes that six hour days are more effective, they wi…

Annoyingly, the article doesn't say why Kellogg's stopped their 30 hour work week. Is it unsustainable in the long term? Then it might be a good idea then if A) your business is creative and not an assembly line and B) you plan to sell your business before the strategy becomes unsustainable. They still had a small amount of departments working 30 hour weeks until 1985. When the company was handed over to new manageme…

Workers at Kellogg's voted for more hours and a corresponding wage increase. Last 530 workers went to 8 hour work weeks in 1985.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#75

Post by [deleted] »

belorn wrote: post #7

> It's unclear how, or if, a lunch break will factor into the scheme. It's a common misconception that eight-hour work day means 9-17 everywhere. In Sweden, the common work day is from 8-17, meaning 8 hours paid time and 1 hour non-paid lunch hour. To my understanding, it's more or less required by law. So if you look on how many hours we will be "at work", we will go from working one hour more than Americans to one…

[deleted]

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#76

Post by spikels »

Why do people, even (possibly) smart and well-meaning people, think there is some one size fits all lifestyle that works for everyone? Maybe some people/jobs work better on different schedules.

And exactly how is this experiment going to collect useful data about the impacts of a shorter workday? Details matter if this is actually science. If it is really just politics then who cares as long as it is popular with the majority.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#77

Post by Dewie »

w1ntermute wrote: post #60
Dewie wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But remember that especially in the scandinavian welfare states, your consumption isn't just your salary, it's a wide range of often rather expensive public services. It seems that outsiders (I am guessing you are, by the way you frame it) are eager to remind us that we have large public sectors, or whatever you want to call it. It feels a bit rude to me; as if you know better than us how our societies/governments…

> It seems that outsiders (I am guessing you are, by the way you frame it) are eager to remind us that we have large public sectors, or whatever you want to call it. It feels a bit rude to me; as if you know better than us how our societies/governments are structured. It can be easy to take for granted your current situation, and become oblivious to it. So it often takes an outsider to remind the insiders of their si…

That's a good point. Sometimes you need outsiders to point out blind spots that you may have from having lived too close to something... so to speak.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#78

Post by ramblerman »

dpweb wrote: post #47

This sounds great for salaried people where an hourly bill rate doesn't play in, but I doubt will get much traction when you're getting paid by the hour. Less hours = less revenue and upping the bill rate to compensate that's not going to catch on. Companies will just view it as a higher bill rate. Too bad though, because I've worked in alot of offices and from home, contracting etc.. Clearly at least two hours out o…

As a contractor I would love 6 hour days and gladly take the pay cut. One size doesn't fit all.

That being said, I could imagine a scenario in Sweden where contractors are now more in demand. As it might be a way around the 6 hours and still hire for 8-9 hour days.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#79

Post by mseebach »

Dewie wrote: post #49
mseebach wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with it, but all the parties involved just need to be conscious of the tradeoff involved: shifting focus from the production of wealth to the consumption of it. As long as the production is higher than the consumption, it's all good and sustainable. But remember that especially in the scandinavian welfare states, your consumption isn't just your salary, it's a wide range of often rather expensiv…

> But remember that especially in the scandinavian welfare states, your consumption isn't just your salary, it's a wide range of often rather expensive public services. It seems that outsiders (I am guessing you are, by the way you frame it) are eager to remind us that we have large public sectors, or whatever you want to call it. It feels a bit rude to me; as if you know better than us how our societies/governments…

I'm not an outsider, and no, "we" don't understand that. The average citizen is only close to breaking even financially in the public budgets, and that is "what's wrong" as the GP asked.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#80

Post by transfire »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #10
steveridout wrote: post #2

Six-hour days may be more productive, but this won't prove it one way or the other because: - The people working six hour days have been told that this may improve productivity so the excitement of being part of the experiment may indeed encourage them to be more effective in the short term - They have a strong incentive to work harder because if the experiment concludes that six hour days are more effective, they wi…

Annoyingly, the article doesn't say why Kellogg's stopped their 30 hour work week. Is it unsustainable in the long term? Then it might be a good idea then if A) your business is creative and not an assembly line and B) you plan to sell your business before the strategy becomes unsustainable. They still had a small amount of departments working 30 hour weeks until 1985. When the company was handed over to new manageme…

Maybe not the same reasons, but I read that the four day work week was ended because of benefit costs (e.g. health care coverage). Fewer hours meant more employees, which meant more benefit overhead. I also read that the works held a mock funeral for it. The were not happy going back to five days.
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