You may have read about the Iceland experiment. From 2015 to 2019, around 2,500 Icelanders were involved in two experiments to see how a shorter working week would affect their productivity. The results are in and the experiments yielded pleasing results for all concerned.
Last year too, (2020), another Scandinavian country, Finland, was rumoured to have plans to formalize a reduced work-week.
From my perspective the results were unsurprising. People were able to be just as effective working fewer hours per day or fewer days per week as they were under a standard 5 day work week or 40 hour work week.
In 2000 France announcd the loi Aubry a revision to the work week. The law, which reduced the statutory working week in France from 39 hours to 35 hours for companies with more than 20 employees and, in 2002, for companies with 20 employees or fewer was met with raised eyebrows in other countries. Those that specifically had reservations were those that somehow see time and attendance as a gauge of productivity.
The 5-hour work-day in progressive companies in progressive countries, has been practiced as a working model for many years. The reason the results hold no surprise is that people have a habit of filling the space that they occupy with themselves their stuff or their work practice and craft.
By switching to shorter working hours with the same workload, people may not do exactly the same work, but the performance results are effectively the same. The ability to get more done in less time really raises question marks around work practice and how productivity is measured. In a narrow window of opportunity, to be effective, the worker will be more efficient in differentiating between useful activity and less useful activity, the important and the unimportant. They’ll invest their time and energy in the things that really contribute to achieving their assigned goals.
Digitalization, automation and a trend toward service and knowledge based work means that we need to engage in fewer and fewer simple tasks.
Instead, we have to be creative and do more thinking. The question then, is can you realistically do that 8 hours a day – for five days? That takes an awful lot of focus and commitment. The reality is that you need down-time in the work week and work-day, time to “recharge your batteries” and regenerate your thought processes – that is best done, away from a place of work – really tough, if you are working from home!
Having to compress your work into fewer hours also means that you have to be a bit more strict with yourself. You have to be more organized and more disciplined.
Less working hours also means that you have to take fewer breaks or pauses. The need for a break after a sustained couple of hours of work is, however very individual in nature. We see authors, artists and artisans of various sorts, who seem to just power through their work or craft for extended hours to meet a particular objective by a deadline, but we also know that such commitment and high intensity of practice is unsustainable for the long-term. COVID-19 put paid to any kind of normalcy in any case.
To avoid burnout or aford employees the necessary opportunity for a break there has to be a change in the mentality of leadership and more trust in self-management. These aspects are central to a switch in any kind of work arrangement – working from home included.
Instead of sending employees into total self-organization and avoiding the provision of directed and thoughtful leadership, there needs to be a recognition of opportunities for autonomous work on the part of both employee and manager.
A five-hour day really has many advantages. One of the most important ones is a question of equal opportunities. For single parents working full-time, they now have the potential opportunity to spend more dedicated time with their children when school gets out – this leads to a healthier parental relationship. With couples, there is improved opportunities for interaction with partner, family, children or colleagues. The observation is that more clearly articulated and expanded leisure time leads to increased “personal happiness”. This will likely lead to less staff attrition.
The notion that ideas and in particular, good ones, come from “down-time” is statistically unproven but it is is also not uncommon for people to believe that good ideas come about from casual conversation.
This leads to an argument against the shorter work week idea, in that the “watercooler talk” or “kitchen talk” that a less compressed workday offers, means that creativity and collaborative opportunities for casual inspiration will be reduced because there will be more frenetic effort to get the work that needs to be done, well… done.
This perspective, assumes that after-hours interaction won’t happen. Of course, it will for those that choose it. The difference now, is that it will be more formally provided.
As with all things, even with a with a 9 to 5 – five day a week schedule or a any other schedule for that matter. The importance of goals and priorities doesn’t go away. In fact “warm bums on seats” is all very well for 40 hours but if you don’t have a clue what these people are doing or supposed to be doing. If you don’t have any meaningful objectives, key results or ways of measuring their effectiveness or productivity, that’s all they are, people seeing others and being seen themselves.