It’s crazy. I’ve read in a few books (fiction, of course) that mention, in passing, that the 40 hour workweek was now replaced by a 32 hour workweek, or something similar.
When do we get to reap the benefits of all of these boosts to productivity?
“Worker productivity” has been going up for 50 years, but compensation hasn’t been. That extra money goes into the pockets of the board and shareholders and CEOs.
80 years ago, the average CEO pay was about 20x the lowest pay in his company. Now, instead, we have billionaires.
on top of this, in the US, most workers have unpaid lunch breaks to some of us are stuck at work for 45 hour weeks, plus commute times are increasing over time so we’re practically spending 50+ hours a week committed to our job with the same pay from a decade ago
There were some fairly major studies in the UK last year, across many companies and multiple industries, where they reduced the 5 day workweek to a 4 day workweek, whilst keeping the compensation of workers the same overall (i.e. salaried workers got the same salary, hourly workers got 25% more per hour)
The majority of companies involved in the study found that their workers were significantly healthier and happier after adjusting to the new schedule… and as a result significantly more “productive”. Profits even went up despite the reduced working time. Most of them elected to keep with the new system once the study ended.
Obviously you can’t do this with every industry, certain industries need 24/7 coverage or the like… you can’t run an ER 4 days out of 7 - but the takeaway is that it’d be better to employ more people for less time and pay them well - you’ll get better results than you will with an exhausted and depressed workforce
It’s crazy. I’ve read in a few books (fiction, of course) that mention, in passing, that the 40 hour workweek was now replaced by a 32 hour workweek, or something similar.
When do we get to reap the benefits of all of these boosts to productivity?
“Worker productivity” has been going up for 50 years, but compensation hasn’t been. That extra money goes into the pockets of the board and shareholders and CEOs.
80 years ago, the average CEO pay was about 20x the lowest pay in his company. Now, instead, we have billionaires.
on top of this, in the US, most workers have unpaid lunch breaks to some of us are stuck at work for 45 hour weeks, plus commute times are increasing over time so we’re practically spending 50+ hours a week committed to our job with the same pay from a decade ago
There were some fairly major studies in the UK last year, across many companies and multiple industries, where they reduced the 5 day workweek to a 4 day workweek, whilst keeping the compensation of workers the same overall (i.e. salaried workers got the same salary, hourly workers got 25% more per hour)
The majority of companies involved in the study found that their workers were significantly healthier and happier after adjusting to the new schedule… and as a result significantly more “productive”. Profits even went up despite the reduced working time. Most of them elected to keep with the new system once the study ended.
Obviously you can’t do this with every industry, certain industries need 24/7 coverage or the like… you can’t run an ER 4 days out of 7 - but the takeaway is that it’d be better to employ more people for less time and pay them well - you’ll get better results than you will with an exhausted and depressed workforce