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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

#81

Post by jseban »

tegeek wrote: post #11

I live & work in Stockholm, Sweden. I start work at 8:00 & leave at sharp 15:00 to pick my son from day care. And these are the most beautiful days of my life. I play with my son every day, I'm doing hobby projects, preparing for summer marathon, read HN & CS papers on cutting edge & getting full 8 hrs sleep. Now tell me how can I do that all with working like donkeys? Human side of life is much more than living in a…

Note that this option is only available for those having small children (paid paternal leave). There is no way to shorten your work hours for any other kind of lifestyle

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

#82

Post by pgeorgi »

StavrosK wrote: post #16
konstruktor wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first of your points is the Hawthorne effect, and I agree that we should not conclude anything from short term productivity increases. But your second point is just absurd. If wanting to keep your shorter working hours turns out to be such a good incentive to work harder and smarter that it improves productivity on the long run, then how does this not prove that shorter hours improve productivity?

Becsuse you'll only do it while you're being measured.

Does it make such a big difference if people are slacking off for 6 hours or for 8 hours as soon as they're not supervised?

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

#83

Post by bjourne »

tegeek wrote: post #11

I live & work in Stockholm, Sweden. I start work at 8:00 & leave at sharp 15:00 to pick my son from day care. And these are the most beautiful days of my life. I play with my son every day, I'm doing hobby projects, preparing for summer marathon, read HN & CS papers on cutting edge & getting full 8 hrs sleep. Now tell me how can I do that all with working like donkeys? Human side of life is much more than living in a…

Funny cause most people I know on paternal and maternal leave says it was such a chore. That it was more work being with their child and that coming to the office was like "vacation" for them. But I'm already expecting most of them just say that because otherwise hardworking non-parents would become very jealous of their lifestyle. :) I could probably also work just a few hours per day and be measurably many times more productive than my peers, but jealousy makes it completely impossible.

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

#84

Post by InclinedPlane »

I think the entire premise here is wrong. The x-hr work day is based on the model of factory work. That model is increasingly less relevant to real work. To imagine that merely changing these outdated labor laws which take factory work as the norm and tweaking the numbers on them in a "favorable" direction will somehow magically greater enrich or empower individual workers is like imagining that changing the laws of horse ownership is going to affect transportation in the mid 20th century. You're turning a knob that isn't connected to the right thing anymore. There are ways to empower individual workers in the 21st century economy, but those ways have very little to do with factory work, and changing the number of hours they are "forced" to work is so far removed from what actually matters as to be ridiculous.

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

#85

Post by k-mcgrady »

Nicholas_C wrote: post #23
Brashman wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm not really sure where the term 9-5 came from considering I've never had a job or known anyone who actually worked 9-5 with a one hour lunch.

The majority of retailers seem to open from 9am-5pm in my experience with workers showing up 10 mins before opening.

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

#86

Post by levosmetalo »

_zen wrote: post #39
tegeek wrote: post #11

I live & work in Stockholm, Sweden. I start work at 8:00 & leave at sharp 15:00 to pick my son from day care. And these are the most beautiful days of my life. I play with my son every day, I'm doing hobby projects, preparing for summer marathon, read HN & CS papers on cutting edge & getting full 8 hrs sleep. Now tell me how can I do that all with working like donkeys? Human side of life is much more than living in a…

Yea, but are you changing the world like Silicon Valley start-ups are? /sarcasm

Switching to 6hr work week _is_ changing the world to be the better place for everyone.

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

#87

Post by heuan »

laxatives wrote: post #72
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…

Thanks for the comment - I wanted a little more information about your work - did you have to search extensively/move a far away for this type of employer?

Also what kind of words would the employer use to describe these working conditions (looks like its beyond normal "flexitime" arrangements) so that others might find them too?

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

#88

Post by smcl »

danbruc wrote: post #21

Something similar seems a good idea to me, too. Example. Germany has 42 million employees and 3 million unemployeds. Reduce working hours from 40 to 37 hours per week - with reduction in salary, but probably not the full 7.5 % - and hire one new employee for every 13 employees. And there you go - no more unemployment and more leisure time for everybody. Saved unemployment benefits can be used to counter salary reduct…

While it's been pointed out that this is a reasonably well-understood problem (Lump of Labour fallacy), I think it's unfair to downvote this comment. I'm reserving my downvotes for abuse and bad conduct, not people I simply disagree with.

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

#89

Post by stuaxo »

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…

Depressingly:

http://money.msn.com/investing/post--what-happened-to-the-6-...

In the '50s, a new management team arrived, one that may have tended to "denigrate and 'feminize' shorter hours." They became embarrassed by the short hours that they were working -- shorter than the shifts worked by men at other local jobs. They changed their rhetoric, downplaying the freedom that leisure gave.

Six-hour workdays wouldn't let them keep up with the Joneses, and many men did not receive much enjoyment from their marginal leisure hours. "Like management, senior male workers were concerned about the loss of status and control. Several men told about the friction that resulted when the men spent too much time around the house: "The wives didn't like the men underfoot all day." "The wife always found something for me to do if I hung around." "We got into a lot of fights." Many of the men confessed that they were at loose ends when they were working six hours. [Mr Zine]

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

#90

Post by stuaxo »

antjanus wrote: post #65
Nicholas_C wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really sure where the term 9-5 came from considering I've never had a job or known anyone who actually worked 9-5 with a one hour lunch.

Yeah, it's what annoys the crap out of me. A 9-5 week means you worked 7 hours a day. That's a 35 hour week. :/

Pretty sure that's all I get to bill for at my current client and about what I work.
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