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Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

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Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#31

Post by pkaye »

kcorbitt wrote: post #24
scarecrowbob wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Absolutely. I don't fully understand workplace cultures (including my own) that claim to care more about "getting your work done" than "hours in a chair." The problem is that output is in many cases a very crude measure of effort. And not just because some people are vastly more productive than others, but also because it's often the case that when reading a bug report, you don't know if the fix will take 3 or 3000 l…

Good points... It all depends on who sets the milestones for "getting the work done".

If a sales guy commit more features to the customers than reasonable, do you need to put in more hours to "getting the work done"? Does he need to stick around late till your are done to penalize him also? If a sales guy doesn't make a sale as aniticipated does he need to stick around until he makes a sale and "gets his work done"?

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#32

Post by Bartweiss »

mhurron wrote: post #11

They'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?

I think the idea is that costs ballooned more than expected.

That shouldn't be shocking either - each shift change requires people to scrub in, pass on information from the previous shift, and so on - but it's a deeper question than adding new staff to cover the missing hours.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#33

Post by RandomOpinion »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #30
JamesBarney wrote: post #2

I 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.

> I'm more curious to see the results of Amazon's 30 hr work week because I believe that includes developers. I hope you're joking, otherwise you don't know Amazon at all. (source: I worked at AWS for six years)

I believe he's referring to Amazon's pilot program for part-time employees doing 30 hour workweeks:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26...

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#34

Post by Freak_NL »

stinos wrote: post #14

the costs outweigh the benefits Well, if you put a low enough price on people's happiness, health, and quality of work, then yes I guess. Anyway: I hope the people involved in the pilot and happily doing 6 hours shifts now, won't take it too hard if the pilot should be stopped and they're back to 8 hour shifts.

They are now back to 8 hour shifts, as the two year pilot ended with the close of 2016.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#36

Post by cylinder »

qntty wrote: post #35

I'd like to see more experiments with a 4-day/8-hour work week. https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/396527/case-32-hour-...

Agree. Six hours a day seems foolish. All that time getting ready for work, commuting, etc only to spend six hours at work. I'm a much bigger believer in just being closed on Fridays if possible

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#37

Post by gnerix »

mhurron wrote: post #11

They'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?

In the US the 8 hour work day was established by FDR with one feature being that it would tighten the labor market (and reduce unemployment) by forcing employers to hire more people.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#38

Post by jahaja »

The main reason this _very_ small scale experiment seems to be scrapped early is not because of costs, but politics. Right-wing politicians have seemingly wanted to end it as soon as possible for quite some time now - and obviously voted against the proposal from the start as well. And at this time and age, employee satisfaction and health benefits doesn't hold up against screams about costs.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#40

Post by bramblerose »

Bartweiss wrote: post #32
mhurron wrote: post #11

They'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?

I think the idea is that costs ballooned more than expected. That shouldn't be shocking either - each shift change requires people to scrub in, pass on information from the previous shift, and so on - but it's a deeper question than adding new staff to cover the missing hours.

The numbers suggest this is not the case. They needed 17 extra employees for 68 existing staff members. Naively, one would expect that for 68 x 8 = 544 man hours per week, one would need 544/6 = 91 (rounded up) employees. Yet 68+17 = 85, which is six employees less!
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