Shorter working day

[Roar87]

I think it would require some planning but in the long term we'd benefit as a society. I'm sure there are some professions where it wouldn't work as well as others, but there won't be many insurmountable obstacles I'm sure.

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.

Wouldn't you just start later so your 6 hours would be in the 3.5 hour cross over?

 

[krooton]

Wouldn't you just start later so your 6 hours would be in the 3.5 hour cross over?

In theory yes, but I don't feel I would get the same benefit having my work day slap bang in the middle of my awake time.

I won't get any extra time that is actually useful, all it would let me do is sleep in a bit

Finsihing at say 3pm would mean I can do life admin stuff like going to bank, or early grocery shopping, etc, things that a later start don't really allow.

 

[skaif]

I would love for it to happen in teaching! Instead of babysitting for 6 hours in the day, only 4 hours, or less!

That still wouldn't detract from the planning, assessment, admin, parents eve's, trips, extra curricular activities, support clubs, interventions, etc, etc, etc (the list goes on) that we have to do anyway.

 

[KiwiTaff]

I work 8-5 Monday to Thursday. Friday, I am away by around 2pm. (If I am in work post 2pm, I start to panic) though during the morning of the Friday, we work at a double rate!

 

[Avenged7Fold]

I would love for it to happen in teaching! Instead of babysitting for 6 hours in the day, only 4 hours, or less!

To be fair, if you cut out learning about the season of Autumn each year for primary school kids after year 1, you would probably gain an extra 2 weeks summer holiday for 5 years

 

[DrToffnar]

Working for the NHS, I'd have to say implementing this would be impossible at present. Most of the staff I work with are forced to work additional hours to keep up with the ever increasing work load.

But there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that shorter working hours would benefit pretty much everyone. I feel utterly Zombified at the end of each working day and just don't have the energy to do anything else :/

 

[CaptainComedy]

Working for the NHS, I'd have to say implementing this would be impossible at present. Most of the staff I work with are forced to work additional hours to keep up with the ever increasing work load (and those are clerical and admin).

But there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that shorter working hours would benefit pretty much everyone. I feel utterly Zombified at the end of each working day and just don't have the energy to do anything else :/

I wouldn't label all of the NHS with that, I'm in the NHS and I am currently twiddling my thumbs (and that's project management)

I do agree, that it just wouldn't work if you are at the end of the work line of command (The person doing the actual work) where deadlines are tight - Software Developers never get enough time, industries that are customer focused with tight deadlines can forget about it, unless they are allowed overtime, and I guess they would want to be paid for that too.

For my department, it would be great because the majority of our work can be.... "aligned" in a couple of hours and we are just left with chasing 3rd parties for updates.

 

[DrToffnar]

I wouldn't label all of the NHS with that, I'm in the NHS and I am currently twiddling my thumbs (and that's project management)

I do agree, that it just wouldn't work if you are at the end of the work line of command (The person doing the actual work) where deadlines are tight - Software Developers never get enough time, industries that are customer focused with tight deadlines can forget about it, unless they are allowed overtime, and I guess they would want to be paid for that too.

For my department, it would be great because the majority of our work can be.... "aligned" in a couple of hours and we are just left with chasing 3rd parties for updates.

Aha sounds as if your one of the lucky ones!

 

[stuman]

in 50 years we'll look back at how we were working now and think "what the **** were we doing?!"

B@

So true, staggered starts and finishes, 30 hour weeks, no rush hours. Then replicate this into schools but with holidays and "term times" then what you get is cheaper holidays as well.

All is easy to implement, but we just need to challenge the "norm".

 

[CaptainComedy]

Do we blame the millenials for this?

I bet they will complain of the "Intense" 6 hour day and we will say

"In my day we did double your **** you whiny ****, we got paid the same and overtime was expected to get promotion! You come here, slurp your sloppy joes and doughnut and think the rainbow has your name in it."

 

[Avenged7Fold]

What?

Did you just assign a complaint that hasn't been made, to a demographic that has not been mentioned in this thread, in a context which is not reality nor in the works to be?

I know bashing the youth out of jealousy is popular on the internet but please, lets wait for something substantial rather than posting like a

whiny ****

 

[Rilot]

I doubt it would take off. There seems to be the view in management that it doesn't matter what you produce it's how many hours you put in.
How many times have you seen a colleague boast about how late he stayed up working to get some document written?

 

[Phil87]

I usually work 8-4 (7 hours + 1 hour lunch break) instead of 9-5 just so I don't spend an extra hour in traffic and can get a parking space at work. There is no overtime pay so I try to avoid extra hours, but I'm thinking of suggesting to my manager that I switch to 10-6 because there has been some talk about there being too few staff in the office after 4. If I made this change it probably wouldn't be a problem for me - instead of driving before rush hour I'll hopefully be driving after, and it just means I'll get up and go to bed 2 hours later. I suppose this is the whole idea of staggered working hours others have mentioned, and I wouldn't say no to 6 hour days

 

[Dunks]

Our flexi time core hours are 10am-3pm (37 hour week to be worked though), the day does feel ridiculous if you happen to do one of those though

 

[Kuros]

I would be happy to do 6 hour days or 4 day weeks...

Honestly, I think it's the one thing that's out of balance with the country right now... spend all time and day working and not enough to actually enjoy life.

Eat Work Eat Sleep Repeat.

 

[MeEsH BaKkA]

Trim

So, what about the people who build or maintain the offices who have a physically more demanding and potentially considerably more dangerous job than office staff?

For example I was working for an investment bank in Birmingham the other month at a weekend doing EICR on power in the plant room while all 4 boilers were being replaced in the 2 day shutdown by another contractor. Office staff IMO are certainly no more deserving of extra time off than say workers in construction, but generally construction are better paid to balance the hours/risk.

What I can't understand is while I'd love more time off, I can do everything I need to and have a happy life as I am currently and probably physically work harder, yet unless I've had a particularly large job or tight deadline I'm no where near exhausted?!

 

[Avenged7Fold]

Are you making the point that there should be no 6 hour days due to people like you who have to work longer days as well as have no issue with it?

I guess since more people will go into these 6 hour roles to fill the gap or have a easier work-life, which leaves your industry more desperate allowing people happy to work more with more leverage to get preferred hours or more money.

 

[tom_e]

I don't think he's saying they're not just that in the case of office workers it would probably be easier to implement.

Saying that I've done physical jobs for long over 12 hour shifts and came away feeling less drained than when I've been stuck in an office staring at a screen for 8 hours.

 

[Ayahuasca]

I'm at my most productive on an evening/early hours so it wouldn't do much for me in this 9-5 life. I think the novelty would wear off for most and instead of being super productive for 6 hours they'd eventually start time wasting again and only doing 4-5 hours of actual work.

The issue is down to poor management at the end of the day, if your employees aren't being productive for 1-2 hours a day it should be easy to spot unless not a single **** is given for productivity.

I think another possibility to look at is more remote/home workers, for example instead of spending 2 hours a day travelling I'd rather do a 10 hour shift from home than an 8 hour with the travel, you just need to keep tabs on their efficiency.

 

[BluD]

I hope people don't start leaving work earlier, one of the nice things about been self employed is that I can avoid hours of traffic jams every day by setting off to and from work an hour or two before the office workers.

I do think shorter days are more productive though in some regards, I used to find I get most my daily work done between 6 and 2 then would be just pottering around for the last few hours, and if I stayed later like 5 onwards I would just end up making mistakes and spend another few hours trying to rectify them, and end up getting home at 10 wishing I had just packed up at 4