Working Hours

An editorial in the NY Times this morning resurrected an old debate: How much of our time should be spent working? Labor unions in the US fought for a standardized 40 hour work week around the start of the last century (8 hours for work, 8 hours for sleep, 8 hours for what you will). In China, there's a 9-9-6 culture (9am-9pm, 6 days a week, 72 hours total). However in the 1930s, Kellog's (the Cornflake company) experimented with a 6 hour work day for employees, and found that better rested workers were more alert and productive. Numerous research studies on the optimal work week have supported and reinforced what Kellog's had found, the overall workforce is more efficient when they spend a shorter time at work and more time in rest and/or leisure.

Secondly, industrialization (and digitization) has always carried the promise of automating the human labor process and 'freeing us from the need for work,' which essentially means less jobs to go around for real people. By reducing the number of hours any individual is expected to work, we can better redistribute work among all people and bring down the unemployment created as machines take over. Unemployment, of course, is linked to a number of other social factors such as crime and public health.

One has to wonder whether our allegiance to the 40 hour work week is more through a symbolic devotion to tradition than it is common sense. It seems responsible for the proliferation of what David Graeber calls "Bullshit Jobs" - putting people to work only for the sake of putting them to work regardless of the actual demand for said work. People often derive a sense of identity from their profession. People stuck in these pointless and inconsequential jobs often struggle with burnout at higher rates than other professions, and Graeber links this to the essential meaninglessness of their work - and of themselves as workers. It seems that doing something meaningful for a few hours a day is highly preferable from a mental health perspective to performing a mostly pointless function for a full eight hours a day, five days a week. Together we can address the work that needs to be done, but we shouldn't invent work that doesn't need to be done just so people can have jobs, nor can we leave people without a source of income and identity as automation reduces the amount of work to go around. Decreasing the work-week is a good step in the right direction as we adapt to the changes technology is bringing to our society.

4 day work week, 10 hours a day.

We’ll, let’s stop looking at this from our modern corporate driven work experience and turn it back to pre-industrial England. A peasant worked about 5-8 hours a day for about 150 days a year. Industrialization brought less time to produce your own food and clothing which meant that you had to buy it which meant you had to work more hours. Also the fairly new standard of sky high housing costs mean we have to work even more time.

Minimum wage was set to ensure a family of four could get by with one working adult in it’s inception and all arguments otherwise have been a diabolical propaganda campaign by the rich.

As for the rich, CEO’s polled work about 30 hours a week, the most common subject they deal with is compensation packages for the higher ups and stock payouts (aka most of their working hours are spent for arguing for more pay). And these people make about 360x more than their employees. A fun stat during this autoworker strike is that an employee at an Ohio parts plant would need to work 16 years to make what the CEO does in one week.

Final thought, millennials are clocked as being far more productive during their working hours than previous generations while receiving famously less compensation for doing more work.

Who here actually runs a business? What are your real working hours? Include the office, what you bring home, and the time you spend at social affairs building your brand and connections.

Members who are employeed, let's hear your working hours. Many of you also take work home.

Quote by Buz

Many of you also take work home.

And many of you struggle to keep a healthy work/life balance. I'm not exactly a 'business owner' but I've worked at places where working from home (or wherever) was the norm, and it requires a huge amount of self-discipline to keep yourself motivated while not letting the work take over your life - not to mention fighting the constant sense of guilt for spending time relaxing when you could be doing something more productive.

My employer is officially on a 37.5 hour week , 5 days at 7.5 hours per day. A lot of the salaried people (including me sometimes) work more than that and there's no OT for salaried staff. Plus our field staff and my IT support team do on-call rotations (the clinical staff do get OT pay for time they actually work during on-call). So I would suspect we have a lot of people doing more than that 37.5.

Being in home health care, a 4 day work week really isn't realistic. Our field staff are supposed to get their visits done in business hours (9-5) and a longer business day would mean patients having to be ready for a visit really early or having our people dropping in at dinner time. So even if the office staff went to 4 day, field staff would probably still be working 5. But there's office staff who support those field staff so they would have to be at least on call for that 5th day (IT, customer service).

So likely easier to just keep to a 5 day work week in our scenario.

Quote by Seeker4

My employer is officially on a 37.5 hour week , 5 days at 7.5 hours per day. A lot of the salaried people (including me sometimes) work more than that and there's no OT for salaried staff. Plus our field staff and my IT support team do on-call rotations (the clinical staff do get OT pay for time they actually work during on-call). So I would suspect we have a lot of people doing more than that 37.5.

Being in home health care, a 4 day work week really isn't realistic. Our field staff are supposed to get their visits done in business hours (9-5) and a longer business day would mean patients having to be ready for a visit really early or having our people dropping in at dinner time. So even if the office staff went to 4 day, field staff would probably still be working 5. But there's office staff who support those field staff so they would have to be at least on call for that 5th day (IT, customer service).

So likely easier to just keep to a 5 day work week in our scenario.

Can't they stagger employee schedules like any business that is open 7 days a week?

In my line of work toward the end of the year we need to work full Saturdays and Sundays. So I have some guys start their week on Tuesday and finish Sunday. That is 6 days, I know, but same concept applies to 4 day week schedules.

Quote by Magical_felix
Can't they stagger employee schedules like any business that is open 7 days a week?

Not easy when you're scheduling visits in people's homes. Not everyone wants their RT or delivery tech showing up at 8pm or on a Saturday. M-F, 9-5 are the best hours for doing that kind of work because that's what people expect. As we develop our virtual care capabilities more (it's a project we kicked off pre-pandemic and have been expanding for the past couple years), then maybe that will change since there will be fewer in-home visits and the virtual care is done by a central pool of clinicians rather than local offices.

And we are one of the more "normal" healthcare organizations. Take a look at how hospital shifts work sometime. At least here, they are often working like 12 hour days but in short bursts (2-3 days at a time) then a break. Very disruptive. I have a guy on my team who is married to a hospital nurse and often has to schedule his WFH days based on his wife's shifts. Now that the kids are back in school it's better. During the pandemic when the schools were closed, his schedule was sometimes being set day-to-day.

Quote by Seeker4

Not easy when you're scheduling visits in people's homes. Not everyone wants their RT or delivery tech showing up at 8pm or on a Saturday. M-F, 9-5 are the best hours for doing that kind of work because that's what people expect. As we develop our virtual care capabilities more (it's a project we kicked off pre-pandemic and have been expanding for the past couple years), then maybe that will change since there will be fewer in-home visits and the virtual care is done by a central pool of clinicians rather than local offices.

And we are one of the more "normal" healthcare organizations. Take a look at how hospital shifts work sometime. At least here, they are often working like 12 hour days but in short bursts (2-3 days at a time) then a break. Very disruptive. I have a guy on my team who is married to a hospital nurse and often has to schedule his WFH days based on his wife's shifts. Now that the kids are back in school it's better. During the pandemic when the schools were closed, his schedule was sometimes being set day-to-day.

Doesn't work for all industries yeah but I feel a 4 day/40 hour work week could work for a lot of industries and I feel most people would rather work 2 extra hours a day if it meant 3 day weekends.

Went from 60 hour work weeks and an hour commute to 20 hour work weeks (paid as 40 since the bosses are happy so long as the work gets done) and I work from home while making higher pay.

Hourly employees in the USA get overtime pay for working over 40 hours (time and a half of their hourly wage).

Salaried employees get no overtime pay, so can be worked to death for no extra money. This is most mid level executives and management.

The system sucks. We'll compensated and rested employees, with good benefits are more productive. Happy employees that are loyal because they are treated right create more money-profit for the company.

The company can go well beyond the government's minimum requirements if they want to, and it will pay off. Salaried employees with an established bonus system for productivity and profit will want to put in the extra effort. The company lowering ut's overtime pay to start at 36 hours, and still give them bonus checks will create employees that are loyal and extra productive. Give the employees a much better than average health insurance, and well over average, generous paid time off and sick day benefits.

Plus, bring in catered lunches occasionally (free to employees). Have company Christmas Party where bonus checks are handed put. Have a company picnic, catered and free to employees, plus be creative and give employees something every so often.

Pay employees very well to begin with. The company will see a much bigger bottom line each year, because the employees will generate more income. It works! I know!

I once worked 4 tens for four days in a row. Then I got 3 days off. Then I worked 3 days at 10 hours and got four days off.

I hated that schedule, cuz none of my family nor friends had the same schedule - I was always the odd man out. Always felt sleep deprived. Of course, this occurred in my mid 30s. When I was off, none of my friends were.

4 Tens sucks as much as 4 Twelves sucks.

Management wants to push you to the edge when you can function just well enough to save them another $70k a year salary - by hiring another person to relieve you. And all the associated costs along with that.

Hospitals in the USA like to make doctors, nurses, and techs to work 12 hour shifts. How sharp is a person those last 4 hours? Surely, much less than they should be with lives and health on the line.

And new doctors may work a few days in a row with no time off, maybe catching an hour or two nap every now and then. Quality decision making, no doubt, is not good. That seems like a formula to get patients killed to me?

And nurses and techs are generally underpaid.

I have KPIs and if I get them done nobody cares where I am and what I’m doing. This means I get my tasks out the way real quick so I can do the stuff I actually like. You can keep somebody at their desk for 40 hour weeks and they can achieve nothing.

I manage my team with that in mind, I don’t care if you’re AFK the whole traditional work day at the end of the week I’ll have progress meetings and either you pass or fail. Go watch your kids play soccer and take a long lunch whenever I don’t want to know and I don’t ask but get the job done or be fired. I don’t care which. Got to love tech related fields.

Capacity does not equal time spent. Also, if somebody can finish the job I allocated a day to in a few hours then good for them. Their experience means that they have more time to relax which makes them more productive and happier. People who have to rely on traditional methods of understanding labour like time keeping just haven’t taken initiative to understand capacity and allocate accordingly. It’s old school.

Quote by PrincessC
I have KPIs and if I get them done nobody cares where I am and what I’m doing. This means I get my tasks out the way real quick so I can do the stuff I actually like. You can keep somebody at their desk for 40 hour weeks and they can achieve nothing.

Quite agree with this and it is, to some degree, how I wish we worked. The problem is that in a project-based department like IT, those KPIs could actually add up to more hours than having fixed office hours.

Quote by Seeker4

Quite agree with this and it is, to some degree, how I wish we worked. The problem is that in a project-based department like IT, those KPIs could actually add up to more hours than having fixed office hours.

Then I’d probably argue that it’s understaffed. I know it’s a bit of a cop-out but if a project takes longer than the KPIs either change them or hire more people to make it possible.

If you want really high paying career, you're going to have to work the hours... long hours. You don't climb to CEO working only 40 hours a week.

It's whatever life you want. You choose.

Quote by PrincessC

Then I’d probably argue that it’s understaffed. I know it’s a bit of a cop-out but if a project takes longer than the KPIs either change them or hire more people to make it possible.

Trust me, the department has grown from 2 permanent staff to 7 in the past decade, plus we take on a co-op student for at least one semester a year. But the company and its IT requirements grow as fast, if not faster. We had a really good student last fall and will probably bring him back permanently after graduation if TPTB let us. That will bring us to 8.

Quote by Buz
If you want really high paying career, you're going to have to work the hours... long hours. You don't climb to CEO working only 40 hours a week.

The question is whether that is what one should aspire to. Way too many who pursue that goal end up as physical and mental wrecks. Personally, I am doing just fine as a department head. Life exists outside of work and I seek to live that life, with work as a support. The CEO is welcome to it. I wouldn't want his job for any amount of money.

Quote by Seeker4

The question is whether that is what one should aspire to. Way too many who pursue that goal end up as physical and mental wrecks. Personally, I am doing just fine as a department head. Life exists outside of work and I seek to live that life, with work as a support. The CEO is welcome to it. I wouldn't want his job for any amount of money.

An excellent point.

I can't see myself working the hours l do now, as hard as l do now into my 50s and 60s. I think it could shorten my life for sure. I do hope what l am doing now will enable me to have a very early retirement to do things l love. The current stress is miserable. I don't crave it. But right now l can't walk away from the earnings.

Quote by Buz

An excellent point.

I can't see myself working the hours l do now, as hard as l do now into my 50s and 60s. I think it could shorten my life for sure. I do hope what l am doing now will enable me to have a very early retirement to do things l love. The current stress is miserable. I don't crave it. But right now l can't walk away from the earnings.

I find that for people who are driven to work so hard, the transition to retirement can be especially difficult. When your whole life is work, and then work ends, it leaves you without a sense of purpose or structure, and people can feel lost and adrift. They may also find that with all the time they focused so much on working, other parts of their lives are underdeveloped due to neglect.