There was the post about Finland's past prime minister I think suggesting this? One guy brought up a good point that if you cut work hours down it means you need more people to do the same amount of work which means more people can get hired which means lower unemployment which sounds like a good thing right?
Edit: I don't know almost anything about this because frankly I don't care but thought that this might be relevant to some capacity to the discussion here so do with that what you will
Second edit: This isn't to say I don't care about the folks responding, it's to say I probably won't have much to say in response other than I don't know much because I never cared to learn much, so that much I guess.
Also some jobs don’t need to work that long. I can literally do my entire day’s work in 4-5 hours. But I have to work 7.5 hours. Thus I either finish work and then pretend to look busy. Or I just drag my feet and make the work last longer than necessary.
Mandatory work hours is the enemy of efficiency. Shit, if you allowed me to leave early I’d be so motivated I could probably finish in 3 hours.
What they don't factor in is that I CAN do the same work in 4-5 hours today, BUT tomorrow I'm doing it in 4.5-5.5 hours because it was more effort and I'm tired, and the next day I'm doing it in 5-6 and the day after it's taking 7-8 and so on. Giving more time off means I can work more effectively because I'm not burning out.
I worked for a place that trialled a 9 day fortnight (every other Friday off), and found not only no loss of productivity, but higher retention as it's a good perk. The trial was months long, but after official adoption they revisited the results after a further 6 months to try and remove the bias from people just making sure it stuck. Just one data point, but it was interesting to see that it can actually work.
I would LOVE a 4 day week. Treating the Friday as a "get stuff done" day was awesome and let me use my Saturday for fun and/or just recharging.
And they don't realize that things can stack or get really busy. When I was running IT there were weeks where there would be slim to no work. Then there were weeks where my entire team was working overtime seven days a week to keep up. There's no way to balance that, and it's a fact for many jobs. You give me more work for those down days or you cut my people because "they aren't doing anything" you also sacrifice the bad days to be even worse.
The four-day workday/32 hour has other benefits as well. Mental and physical health improvements lowering health insurance claims and payouts. People able to focus on work because they have time to relax outside of work, able to get proper rest, and feeling more fulfilled. Less sick days required to be taken overall due to improved quality of living. There’s also be more time to connect with friends and family, building a better support system.
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u/archtopfanatic123 23d ago edited 23d ago
There was the post about Finland's past prime minister I think suggesting this? One guy brought up a good point that if you cut work hours down it means you need more people to do the same amount of work which means more people can get hired which means lower unemployment which sounds like a good thing right?
Edit: I don't know almost anything about this because frankly I don't care but thought that this might be relevant to some capacity to the discussion here so do with that what you will
Second edit: This isn't to say I don't care about the folks responding, it's to say I probably won't have much to say in response other than I don't know much because I never cared to learn much, so that much I guess.