Then the overall productivity is reduced a bit, or other workers make up the shortfall. Either way it is academic because the total work required is an average and the average number of sick and vacation days is also known.
Four day work week
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Then the overall productivity is reduced a bit, or other workers make up the shortfall. Either way it is academic because the total work required is an average and the average number of sick and vacation days is also known.
Most companies would sink and unemployment would rise accordingly. You might be surprised but sot companies don't make huge profits.
Besides which, expecting companies to massively reduce profits so the workers get a 3 day weekend is entirely unrealistic.
I know a few people who have worked in the US and they found the attitude wasnt spend as much time as possible to get the job done, it was just spend as much time as possible at the office.
Their take on it was that they have a big long working hours culture where they have to be seen to be in the office for 12 hours a day even if there was nothing to do. They both said that they didn't get 12 productive hours out of the staff because they spent a lot of time messing about killing time.
But it is a good mindset, i never understood the fixation some people have that they are paid form 98-5. no, you are paid a salary to do a job, the average working hours maybe 40 hours a week, and you contract may stipulate a facetime requirement but it is pathetic to view a job in an hourly way.
You are hired because you have a job to do, not sit on a seat for 8 hours a day. If someone is so concerned about hours worked then would they be happy if the employer deducted wages for time spend in the bathroom, time spent having a cuppa, on Facebook/OCUK? Do you want to be clicked in and out every-time you get off your seat?
It is a ridiculous antiquated notion as your colleagues rightly say, best reserved for a factory or warehouse.
Of course, it has to go both ways and with any decent employer it will. If I've had a very productive morning then I'll wrap up several hours early.
I've definitely seen people argue here that if you have a push and get a ton done by 3pm then you should carry on working until the end of the day at the same pace, and then do the same thing every day, since that's what you're being paid for.
I keep to any appointment times scheduled with clients, or internal meetings (waste of time they are), outside of that I'll generally just leave if I can tell nothing else is going to get done that day. Hopefully it doesn't need to be said that you need to be good at what you do for this to work. I get all of my best thinking done on the commute anyway, so I think my employer do alright out of me.
I sort of feel sorry for the ones who feel the need to stay "until the job's done" - the job will never be done. There will always be more work tomorrow. Some of it might even be worth doing.
I keep to any appointment times scheduled with clients, or internal meetings (waste of time they are), outside of that I'll generally just leave if I can tell nothing else is going to get done that day. Hopefully it doesn't need to be said that you need to be good at what you do for this to work. I get all of my best thinking done on the commute anyway, so I think my employer do alright out of me.
I sort of feel sorry for the ones who feel the need to stay "until the job's done" - the job will never be done. There will always be more work tomorrow. Some of it might even be worth doing.
Unfortunately those decent employers are closer to the exception than the rule - plenty would click people in and out for toilet breaks, etc. if they could get away with it.
Also needs to be some reasonableness to it - if you are hired to do a job on a 40 hour contract but the work is never done even working 60+ hour weeks then that is a completely different story to say a 40 hour contract and having to do an extra 2-3 hours a week to fulfil the job.
Associate
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That begs a question.
Why are you trying to "force" that mindset, the US mindset onto UK employees?
Edit: bit to late on the party on this one.
The thing is it goes both way, since so many people have the mindset that they are only there because they are getting paid, and they are getting paid for 8hours then they will sit at the desk for 8 hours and walkout the minute the clock strikes 5.
Good employees and good employers go hand in hand and work together.
There is nothing wrong with working 60 hours a week as long as the employer understand that and is stable compensated for it. In many industries that is the norm.
Don;t understand that attitude at all. If I get a load of stuff done by 3pn m then i'm out to enjoy the afternoon sun. More liekly my morning wasn't productive so I will push on to around 7pm but will stop as soon as I am underproduction. Sometimes I will be productive right through the evening and work until 9 or 10pm even, then sleep in the next day and go for a short walk.Sometimes days go by where I can't get much work done so will make up for it in the weekend with a few hours extra.
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I sort of feel sorry for the ones who feel the need to stay "until the job's done" - the job will never be done. There will always be more work tomorrow. Some of it might even be worth doing.[/QUOTE]
If that is consistent then yes there is likely a problem somewhere. big projects can always be split into smaller tasks and that is what one should focus on. If finishing the task is taking longer than expected and might push back a deadline then it is very useful to have employees motivated to help keep things on track under their own diligence. The employer should simply recognize that fact and be happy with the employee having reduced hours later, sleeping in the next day or skipping out of work early on Friday etc.
Chances are if you have to "stay until it's done" (i.e. past your working hours) then your employer has not planned and resourced the task properly.
I've witnessed that but thankfully not been a part of it. If someone came to me and said "we've won this project but I told the client we could have it done inside two weeks" and it was a 3-4 week job then yeah, sorry. You'd best get on the phone and disappoint them.
Or unforeseen changes occured, you can't predict everything.
Typically example a few weeks back, CEO had good talks with a company who we hope will invest in us or buy us out, they wanted a demo and some data analysis ASAP to pass on to their CEO. We busted our balls to get that done while at the same time keeping all out other clients happy. We could have said, "no, it will take a few weeks at least, maybe longer, we are just too busy", and jeopardized our future.
I think people are generally pretty fair if stuff like that did come up though - they'd know if the workload was a genuine push that the company was making or if it was just a salesman trying to meet targets and the extra work was falling on a couple of people with the management nowhere to be seen past 5pm.
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Can't plan for events like that.
It's when you have LastMinute.com requests on a near daily basis that you know that your management can't organise the proverbial **** up in a brewery.
Would love a 4 day week, but people have their priorities all wrong in this country. No one will say they wished they worked more when they are on their death bed. However if you don't go above and beyond, you don't get the progression, so there's no winning.
No one should _have_ to work 60 hours a week as a norm, some people might choose to, some jobs might actually require it i.e. if you aspire to upper management, etc. (for the record there are very few weeks lately when I haven't done atleast 15 hours, sometimes 21-22 hours over time - but I do get paid hourly after a certain point).
IMO the whole balance is wrong and people have been conditioned into mindsets that actually if you take a step backwards doesn't really make a whole lot of sense in abstract when viewed from outside the "system".
It's odd actually. For me, I would probably say "I wish I worked more" on my death bed - but in the sense that I wish I worked on my own projects more. It's so hard to find the energy to work at that consistently especially when we're supposed to exercise, socialise, keep our living spaces vaguely clean and all that stuff which keeps us healthy and close enough to sane. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm very pleased with my current employer, I think I'm very lucky to work with the people that I do and I hope I work with them a long time but the squeeze is very real. I can only imagine that it's so much worse for the majority of workers who really don't enjoy what they do.
I agree, if it is a continuous requirement to work such hours then 1 of 2 things must happen:
1) Salary must satisfy true working hours, this is common in many industries 2) Employer must handle more people to handle peak work loads and suck it up for quieter periods.
It is just a natural consequences of people wanting to do well for themselves, have extra money,/power, greed.
On the whole, people are willing to trade much more of their time for money. I certainly am at the moment. Even if I could trade a 4 day week for a 20% cut in salary i am ot sure I would at the moment, once you start figuring out what impact that has to mortgage over-payments etc. I'm much more of the mindset to earn what I can now and make life easier for myself in the future. Soon I may be mortgage free and have decent savings if I keep working full-time, at that point then I hope my priorities change. I would surely love a big reduction in work hours but the corresponding salary reduction is hard to justify.
I think a 4 day week and 8-10 weeks vacation a year is optimal but I simply understand why that is impractical form a business perspective and even at equal pay rates may not be in my best interest in the long term.