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Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

bbc.com

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Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#61

Post by dantheman »

Someone1234 wrote: post #56
verttii wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In contrast, if USA is not performing better then why are most of the digital innovations of US origin? Why do like half of the world's tech billionaires live in Silicon Valley? While Finland has maybe 1? The Scandinavian countries focus on leveling the playing field for everyone. It allows the less privileged to build a good life, but it also hinders the most ambitious ones. Whereas USA is happy to focus on the extr…

> Why do like half of the world's tech billionaires live in Silicon Valley? Because wealth is concentrated at the top... That's the whole problem. Society gets poorer while the ultra-wealthy continue to accumulate wealth. > It allows the less privileged to build a good life, but it also hinders the most ambitious ones. Good..? So your complaint is that Nordic countries try to make give everyone a good standard of liv…

The poor do not get poorer. It's not a zero sum game. The size of the pie is constantly increasing in absolute terms.

I don't think you understand how US salaries compare to European ones, it's not even close.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#62

Post by rapunkill »

outside1234 wrote: post #39

Nokia is a good example of why this doesn't work. As soon as there was a talented company that wanted to work hard for the market (Apple), Nokia was toast.

No, bad example. Nokia failed because they were using windows mobile instead of Android.

In 2011 Nokia started using windows phone os which, at the time, no one knew if it was going to catch on. In 2014 Microsoft bought the phone division and kept the OS although at that point it was clear that it was not going to work out. Operation stopped in 2017.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#63

Post by acd »

I can highly recommend the world to adopt like in the Nordics at least 4-5 weeks of yearly vacation. Staff are more rested with more vacation so they are more productive plus you get a different perspective having time off. Also companies should allow remote work and flexible hours. Further due to increased automation we could actually work less hours keeping the same output. If we automate more work we could allow us selves more free time, still enjoying the same output.

I think tech companies will lead the way because of the competitive nature hunting for talent. Hopefully other industries will follow. Maybe California as state will lead the way in the US?

Annual leave by country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#64

Post by refurb »

hylaride wrote: post #17
algui91 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, what a shame, I though it was real :-(

It's never as real or good as you think. France's famous 35 hour workweek only really applies to people who clock in hourly wages. Even there, it's merely the number where overtime kicks in. If you're a professional/salaried you work as much as the job requires, just like the US.

Yup. I hear about this awesome work-life balance in Europe and then I jump on a call with my Swiss colleagues who are in the office at 6pm working their asses off.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#65

Post by nextlevelwizard »

verttii wrote: post #52
pjc50 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely Apple is an example of working smarter rather than harder?

it's of both. Nokia was heavily constrained by the Finnish labor laws and working culture.

Listening to people who worked at Nokia before shut down there was a lot of wasted time and effort on products that lead nowhere. They missed the boat with the smart phones. It took too long for Nokia to come out with a smart phone line and it was plagued with hardware design flaws. Then they gambled on the OS and rest is history.

Had Nokia jumped on board of the smart phone grace right off the bat and supported Google instead of Microsoft the scene might be way different.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#67

Post by nextlevelwizard »

chousuke wrote: post #23
rayiner wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does cultural homogeneity have to do with it? Homogenous cultures have an easier time agreeing to all do the same thing. It’s called establishing social norms. I went to a STEM magnet high school that was about 1/3 Asian when I was there and is now 2/3 Asian. It was already known as a pressure cooker when I was a kid, and the competitiveness went way up since then. Why? Well I was one of those Asians. My dad g…

As a Finn, I really can't imagine doing an office job 16 hours a day for a sustained period of time; even the standard seven and a half is a challenge to fill with productive work every day (certainly you could idle at the office but that doesn't count as working). A single 16-hour day is doable if there's really something to do, but it would cause me to take the next day off. Doing what I do currently, constant 16 h…

At least in programming you can easily see who do put in extra effort be it studying/playing with new tech or writing new software and thous who for it is only a 9 to 5 job.

The former people seem to produce way better quality code and ideas compared to latter, but that is to be expected since they are in one way or another immersed in the "world of programming" more than others.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#68

Post by bitL »

acd wrote: post #63

I can highly recommend the world to adopt like in the Nordics at least 4-5 weeks of yearly vacation. Staff are more rested with more vacation so they are more productive plus you get a different perspective having time off. Also companies should allow remote work and flexible hours. Further due to increased automation we could actually work less hours keeping the same output. If we automate more work we could allow u…

Increased productivity doesn't lead to increased wages and increased automation doesn't lead to less work/lower number of days/hours at work. Management plays dominance game, that only works when employees are made feel frustrated and stressed; any move towards happiness like reduced hours and work from home/remotely diminishes any gains from dominance game; relaxed employees with many options would require any monetary gains from productivity to be reflected on their paychecks.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#69

Post by rayiner »

fsloth wrote: post #60
rayiner wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does cultural homogeneity have to do with it? Homogenous cultures have an easier time agreeing to all do the same thing. It’s called establishing social norms. I went to a STEM magnet high school that was about 1/3 Asian when I was there and is now 2/3 Asian. It was already known as a pressure cooker when I was a kid, and the competitiveness went way up since then. Why? Well I was one of those Asians. My dad g…

Mexico has the worst productivity of the listed countries and the longest workweek: https://time.com/4621185/worker-productivity-countries/ For a large population working longer gives no obvious benefit. It might work for you and your family! But globally, for any general population, you can't squeeze out more than the 7-8 hours of productive work per day and for even some fields this is a stretch. So, even if there…

You're mixing up several different things. "Productivity" is a measure of GDP created by labor. That has several significant implications:

First, productivity is heavily influenced by technology and financialization of the economy. A programmer working 8 hours per day creates a much larger GDP than a factory worker working 8 hours per day. So you can't compare the productivity of workers in a place like Mexico, where there is a lot of manufacturing and agricultural work, to a place like the USA, where a lot of the work is in fields like finance, software development, media, etc. (In your article, that's why Luxembourg has 50% higher GDP per hour worked as compared to Germany or the US--it's a heavily financialized economy.)

Second, there is a difference between productivity per hour worked and total productivity. Working more hours can lead to diminished productivity per hour, but still lead to overall higher GDP. The chart in the article actually proves that. Each American worker is responsible for $119,000 in GDP per year. Each Danish worker is responsible for $96,500 per year. Americans work about 23% more hours and produce about 23% more overall.

Third, even if there are diminishing returns to working more hours, they're not huge. Americans work a full quarter more than Germans, while maintaining higher productivity per hour. Part of that is due to America being more of a high-tech/financial economy, but in any event it doesn't seem like the extra work is tanking productivity.

As to the point about cultural homogeneity: the success of flexible work arrangements are predicated on social consensus, and building social consensus requires homogeneous values and attitudes. If you want to build a work culture where people feel comfortable taking 4-5 weeks of vacation, having a bunch of Americans who think it's better to work 25% more for 25% more money is going to undermine that. If you want people to feel comfortable working from home, having people who are culturally pre-disposed to associating face time with commitment to the job is going to undermine that.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#70

Post by starsinspace »

outside1234 wrote: post #39

Nokia is a good example of why this doesn't work. As soon as there was a talented company that wanted to work hard for the market (Apple), Nokia was toast.

Then how about Motorola, a US company in the same market segment, which also failed?
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