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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

#91

Post by hjnilsson »

cgh wrote: post #33
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.

Yes, I'm with you. I would also value a larger block of days off each week as there's more potential for trips etc. A six hour workday would be 30 hours a week. Imagine that as three ten hour days instead. Wow, that would be fantastic.

Well, I think the benefits of the 6-hour day would disappear then. IIRC correctly research shows that productivity falls steeply after 5 hours at work, with hour 6-8 being at 75% producitity, and after that 50% (approximately). So having 3x10 days would kill the benefit of increased producitivity during the time you are at work, while still costing as much.

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

#92

Post by mattlutze »

danbruc wrote: post #40
nerfhammer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called the lump of labor fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

I call the fallacy a fallacy - it seems way to simplistic to me. There is obviously a fluctuation in work demand, for example all the seasonal work, but this fluctuation is not arbitrarily large. Take it to the extreme, 20 instead of 40 working hours per week - how would this not require twice as many employees, maybe even a few more because of reduced efficiency, to yield the same output? In essence this is nothing…

A few thoughts:

1. Not all jobs are created equal, and not all unemployed persons are qualified or capable of performing all jobs. There would still be a mismatch in positions available and workers to fill those positions; without "perfect" alignment a community productivity deficit would continue, moving the costs around instead of eliminating them.

2. It'd become politically desirable to disproportionately point these efforts at industries where it'd be easier to integrate the unemployed ranks (lower skill set barriers to entry). This would have an effect of reducing profit margins in those sectors given the increased overhead of a larger workforce for an unpredictable amount of productivity change. One expects if the total labor hours are the same, economic output of an individual entity in that economy would be equal while personnel costs would increase.

3. There will always be a small portion of the working populace out of work for legitimate reasons.

And, please do a little Googling on seasonal work. In the US, for example, millions of jobs fluctuate between seasons depending on buying and production trends. That's not small peas, so to speak.

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

#93

Post by ptr »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #84

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…

The governing parties of the city doing this experiment are left-wing, which tend to be stuck in that kind of thinking. There aren't many factory workers anymore in Sweden, so I guess it's based on some kind of revolutionary romantic notion or whatnot.

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

#94

Post by jojorox »

I also live in Stockholm Sweden and Im furious over how its becoming the norm here to not strive to become anything. Never take risks.

The plan here is to work for a midsize company with a good secure reputation, have kids and then just do the bare minimum until you retire.

I think its undermining the intellectual capital we have to not be ambitious, not work hard and not accomplish more than the bare minimum.

I work a lot more than 6 hours a day. I run two startups, about to quit my fulltime job to do said startup. I have 7 am meetings, I work weekends and nights. My girlfriend is not always impressed with how hard I work but she gets it and supports me.

I think the option should be there, but it should not accepted as default. If the American dream is to be something the Swedish dream is to be nothing.

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

#95

Post by hpaavola »

jojorox wrote: post #94

I also live in Stockholm Sweden and Im furious over how its becoming the norm here to not strive to become anything. Never take risks. The plan here is to work for a midsize company with a good secure reputation, have kids and then just do the bare minimum until you retire. I think its undermining the intellectual capital we have to not be ambitious, not work hard and not accomplish more than the bare minimum. I work…

What you do at work does not equal what and who you are. Luckily more and more people realize that we already have so much wealth that we can change some income to extra free time.

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

#96

Post by collyw »

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. :/

Huh, why does that annoy you? Too little or too much? That seems kind of normal to me (well less and less so). Anywhere between 35 and 40 hour week I would class as normal (though the trend is towards 40).

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

#97

Post by danohuiginn »

smsm42 wrote: post #50
rdl wrote: post #32

I don't think 6h/day of work is particularly unreasonable, if you can avoid losing blocks of time to useless activities (unneeded meetings, or waiting for people). If you're remote, and only clock-in when actually working, spending 3-4h/day working productively can easily outdo someone spending 10h/day in an office. I've worked in places where my ultimate client billable rate was obscene, and tracked to the 6min or 1…

How shorter work day would eliminate any useless activities? Useless activities happen not because work day is too long but because work processes not organized perfectly. Shorter workday would not make processes any better, so the same percentage of time would be wasted.

It can also be worse. Some useless activities aren't fixed amounts, rather than proportional to the number of hours worked.

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

#98

Post by collyw »

nilkn wrote: post #17
forcefsck wrote: post #9

How about four 8-hour days per week? Could they schedule this as the next experiment the following year?

Indeed, I'd value a day off in the week more than just fewer hours per work day. In fact, personally, I'd work longer hours on the days I do work in order to compensate--that's how much I'd value a four day work week. At least in the US, having, say, a Friday off means you can easily run to the bank or do other personal business that is much easier to do during the week than the weekend.

Yes, our wok started off with very flexible holidays and working hours. i was quite happy to put in a couple of hours extra per week to get things finished.

Bureaucracy has kicked in, and now the flexible working hours are less flexible as are the holidays. If someone insists that I be in by an exact time, I'll make sure I leave exactly 8 hour later these days.

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

#99

Post by msvalkon »

hjnilsson wrote: post #91
cgh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm with you. I would also value a larger block of days off each week as there's more potential for trips etc. A six hour workday would be 30 hours a week. Imagine that as three ten hour days instead. Wow, that would be fantastic.

Well, I think the benefits of the 6-hour day would disappear then. IIRC correctly research shows that productivity falls steeply after 5 hours at work, with hour 6-8 being at 75% producitity, and after that 50% (approximately). So having 3x10 days would kill the benefit of increased producitivity during the time you are at work, while still costing as much.

As a policy, this sort of thing probably would not work but the statistic does not apply to all people. I'd be interested to see a large company which allowed the workers to decide freely. Measuring results would obviously be difficult.

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

#100

Post by collyw »

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.

5 -6 hours uninterrupted work would be nice. I reckon I must get interrupted every half hour or so.
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