Shorter working day

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fez

Caporegime
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There haver been trials of this all over the world and the general outcome seems to be positive. People are happier, they get just as much work done and they have a better work/life balance.

My question is whether you think this would work at your company?

I understand that there are a lot of jobs where this wouldn't work simply because you need people there all the time. Doctors, nurses, that sort of job where you are making sure all 24 hours of the day are covered.

For plenty of office jobs however your only reason to be there for 8 plus hours a day is because thats considered a working day and perhaps clients or contacts you need to talk to are there until 5:30. This sort of thing could be worked around if you explained the situation to them or simple staggered your staffs 6 hours to cover 9-5 so that there was always a certain number of staff there at all times.

Do you think that you work solidly for the full amount of time you are at work or does your focus fall during the day. Would you be any less productive working only 6 hours? Could you complete your work in 6 hours?

Just wondered if this is genuine pie in the sky idea of if it could work in many businesses.
 
I do 12 hour shifts at the moment and on the odd occasion that I do 8 hours it feels amazing, but then months of 8 hours and I'd think 6 hours is amazing and so on.
 
It takes me a while to wake up in the morning and the last hour is spent clock watching so there's 2 hours they could give me back to enjoy as I see fit and not see my work rate suffer.
 
Absolutely. It's very evident in my crew that they perform considerably better in the morning and towards the end of the day the motivation is non-existent. It's hard motivating people who are knackered and fed up.
 
I start work officially at 9 and finish at 5.

But due to the nature of working from home, and that my customers/clients work until 6pm mostly.

I tend to do 8:30am to 7pm most days, and occasionally I can still be at it, at 10pm. But I work from home, so it's a little more relaxed that say working in an office till 7pm.
 
Would your pay be reduced to match the decrease in time spent at work, or would you make up the additional hours needed at the weekend?

I can imagine a lot of people wouldn't be able to support that and would prefer to continue working the full 8 hours for the same pay. Also I would imagine a lot of companies wouldn't like the idea of paying people the same wage for less hours either :p

I could probably compact my workload to fit into those 6 hours but would probably mean taking no breaks and I wouldn't want to lose the income either.
 
It could absolutely work but with most 8 hour working days in office jobs I'd say a whole hour (not including lunch) is 'wasted' dilly dallying around, having a chat with colleagues, surfing the web/phone checking, tea making etc. If you could change the working culture to be more focused for the 6 hours it'd work great. But if that same culture translate into the 6 hour day then you'd end up with lot of people only doing about 5 hours of work.
 
I work 0730 - 1600 Monday through Thursday and Friday it's 0730 - 1330 normally.

Flexi time is very good though, if I fancy a lay in I can start at 0900 and finish later.

Going from doing a 60h working week to a 37h working week in a new job was a very nice shock to my system.
 
A topic that has been discussed here a few times.

When experimented with where I work the results have been positive to overwhelmingly positive but whether that would continue to be the case in the long term (once the novelty wore off) not so clear - for some reason there is general reluctance at management level to adopt it and when the managers that have been sympathetic towards it move on their replacements have changed it as almost the first thing they do.

Some industries or roles it just isn't possible though.

The biggest impact on my life though has been that recently its been possible to do an early start and compressed hours on a Friday so I'm usually out by around 10am - mid-day at the latest and it almost transforms the weekends - I also find I'm significantly more productive through 7-11am or so despite not being a morning person - interestingly the latest figures show a dramatic increase in productivity on those morning shifts versus when they were run approx. 6-11pm.
 
Wouldn't work here, our head offices are in the US, so we already have a 5 hour lag each day, and only have 3.5 hours of real cross-over time.

Being able to leave well before rush-hour would be a huge psychological boon to everyone though, so much time and stress would be saved.
 
Depends on your role, if you're stacking shelves then you'll simply be paid less. If you're doing project work then it doesn't matter so long as you hit the deadlines. Though I'd be skeptical that people would be as productive in that instance.
 
krooton;30483112 said:
Being able to leave well before rush-hour would be a huge psychological boon to everyone though, so much time and stress would be saved.
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If it was adopted generally rush hour would just move - that said if there was a culture of spreading out the workforce and shorter days it might help traffic flow and possibly by extension the economy as a whole if traffic movement was spread out over the day.
 
krooton;30483112 said:
Wouldn't work here, our head offices are in the US, so we already have a 5 hour lag each day, and only have 3.5 hours of real cross-over time.
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Why wouldn't it work, no one has dictated when these 6 hours need take place?
 
Despite it showing mostly positive effects, i cant help but feel that it would be somewhat counter-productive when considering the average British office work-ethic.
 
dowie;30483127 said:
Why wouldn't it work, no one has dictated when these 6 hours need take place?
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yeah, people seem to be missing this point :p EVERYONE's not going to be working 9-3 every day.. if anything with the shorter shift patterns it'll be so much easier for companies to offer a broader range of working hours by staggering the workforce

B@
 
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