Wharton Professor Says America Should Shorten the Work Day By 2 Hours (cnbc.com)

Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist, New York Times best-selling author, and The Wharton School's top professor, says Americans should work two hours less. Instead of the typical 9-to-5, people "should finish at 3pm," says Grant in a recent LinkedIn post. "We can be as productive and creative in 6 focused hours as in 8 unfocused hours." CNBC reports: In the LinkedIn post, Grant was weighing in on an Atlantic article about the time gap between when school and work days end, a bane for many parents. But it's not the first time Grant has given his stamp of approval to less work with more productivity. "Productivity is less about time management and more about attention management," Grant tweeted in July, highlighting an article about a successful four-day work week study. For the study, a New Zealand company adopted a four-day work week (at five-day pay) with positive results; the company saw benefits ranging from lower stress levels in employees to increased performance. In a recent blog post, billionaire Richard Branson also touted the success of a three-day or four-day work week. "It's easier to attract top talent when you are open and flexible," Branson said in the post. "It's not effective or productive to force them to behave in a conventional way."

"Many people out there would love three-day or even four-day weekends," said Branson. "Everyone would welcome more time to spend with their loved ones, more time to get fit and healthy, more time to explore the world."

Comments

What typical 9-5?

[b0s0z0ku]

More like 8-6 in much of the US, if not worse.

I envy people in places like France and Quebec who take their free-time seriously -- closing time is 6 pm for many business that would stay open until 8 or even 10 pm in the US.

Re: What typical 9-5?

[ShanghaiBill]

We are moving to self-checkout and cashierless stores. So why close at all? My local grocery store is open 24/7. The lights are on motion sensors, so no electricity is being used unless someone is walking down that aisle. There is a skeleton crew doing restocking, but I just self-checkout so I don't bother them.

Have you ever been to a 3rd world country? You will notice many many people selling a small collection of goods spread out on blankets or tables on the side of the road. This is WHY they are poor. Retail is unproductive and an economic dead end. It is a transaction cost, not a cost of producing goods or services. The larger the retail workforce, the poorer the country.

The purpose of jobs is to produce goods and services, not "keeping people busy", and retail doesn't produce anything. The sooner we can eliminate most retail jobs, the better. This will free up labor for actual productive activities.

Re:What typical 9-5?

[ShanghaiBill]

What's wrong with laziness?

Laziness has consequences. If you are willing to bear those consequences yourself, then feel free to be lazy.

The problem is that in a democracy, the lazy can vote, and they vote for bread and circuses paid for with OPM* and deficit spending.

They don't make the effort to understand the long term consequences of that because they are ... lazy.

*OPM= Other People's Money

Re: What typical 9-5?

[b0s0z0ku]

"Cashier" is another term for "security guard" in a 24-hour cashierless store.

Re: What typical 9-5?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to be able to do that. I'm not an idiot who wants nuclear safety inspectors to be running at half staff and sixteen hour shifts every week, and skipping inspections completely at all two days a week.

Maybe some idiots want taxi drivers to drive twenty four hour shifts every other day, and wants to take a second taxi to the emergency room after the first one crashes, where a surgeon will be on his 47th continuous hour with his hand in someone else's guts to get the shattered windshield glass out of their eyes.

But as for me, I prefer to live in a civilization with some basic rules that make the employer criminally liable for those types of conditions, so as to deter that sort of reckless third party danger.

To the non insane, non RW snowflake , easily triggered folks reading the article, it is clear the writer means for backend/non retail type "thought" industry workers. A brick layer can't lay bricks 33% faster as skillfully in six hours to match 8 hours of output etc.

If your job is at a keyboard typing as fast as you can, with no interruptions, it doesn't apply to you either.

Re: What typical 9-5?

[stealth_finger]

In the real world you can't just hire more people. Businesses (even non-profits like hospitals) have fixed budgets they must meet. If they hire more people the cost of production goes up and the charge for services must be increased. The same work for more money means lower productivity.

If your business isn't making enough money to pay enough people to do the job properly then you don't have a viable business and making up for it by having as few staff paid as little as possible doesn't do you any favours in the long run.

Re:What typical 9-5?

[Luckyo]

I can understand your view completely. Hence the way I ended the post you're answering to. The problem remains that globalisation has already progressed well beyond "factory workers", and there are now a lot of well educated engineers in places like China, who would love to do the work you would rather not do because you want to spend time with your family.

And while they're at it, they would also love to do the rest of your work. For less money than you are getting.

Do you see the problem?

Also, get rid of "exempt" jobs...

[b0s0z0ku]

If you work > 40 hr/wk, you should be entitled to additional compensation, regardless of salary. Fair's fair. Should discourage employers from abusing knowledge workers.

Re:Go for it

[b0s0z0ku]

Good. Then mandate it, or at least mandate overtime for ALL workers who are required to work over 40 hrs per week. If people are taken away from their families and lives, they should be compensated for it appropriately. And having to pay 1.5x or 2x time should encourage employers to hire more workers vs having unreasonable expectations from their existing workforce.

Two things that stuck with me...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Working hours vs. productivity

Working hours vs. premature deaths

Poor assumption

[viperidaenz]

"We can be as productive and creative in 6 focused hours as in 8 unfocused hours."
Assuming people will focus more if they only work 6 hours a day.

Also assuming when people work has no impact.
A lot of people work the hours they do because they're providing a service to customers over that time period. No matter how hard they work for 6 hours won't let them answer a phone between 3 and 5 when they're not working.

Lunch

[onyxruby]

There is no such thing as a free lunch. I think this must be the most hard to learn lesson in human history. The second must be the law of supply and demand.

People keep trying to come up with ways to get around having to pay for things. Countless millions have been subject to poverty and starvation because some fool somewhere thought they could legislate there way around basic laws of economics (Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Soviet Union etc.).

You can't create something from nothing. Somebody has to pay for it with finite resources.

We humans keep trying to cheat the basic laws of economics, time and again, thinking that surely this time must be the time things will automagically work. How many millions will starve to death before this kind of foolishness is considered a crime against humanity?

Re:Lunch

[hjf]

People used to work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, from children to their deaths.
Then we negotiated the 8 hour work day.
Then we negotiated the 5 day work week.

It's actually very simple: if people work all day every day, they have no free time. If they have no free time, they don't buy things. If they don't buy things, there are no jobs.
If people don't work, they have no money. If they have no money, they don't buy things. If they don't buy things, there are no jobs.

There is an equilibrium point that maximize "people working" and "people consuming".

Seriously, Americans surprise me with their "leave it to the market" attitudes. Like for example "no vacations mandated by law". Yeah the free market doesn't solve that: Walmart doesn't give you vacations. Why would it, when it can, you now, ... not?

You guys have no vacations and no holidays. You "work hard" and your living standard is inferior to an european's, who have 1 month vacations and a few holidays sprinkled around the year.

Re:Lunch

[Uberbah]

Europeans have 1 month vacations because America grants Europe a massive $150 billion in subsidies in the form of horribly unfair trade deals.

America is the richest country in the history of the world. Try telling us again how one month vacations would cost toooo much.

Moreover America occupies Europe

FTFY. Russia has a smaller economy than Spain, and their entire defense budget is a fraction of the last increase to Pentagon pork. All those U.S. military bases across Europe are not for defense.

They're for empire.

Re:Lunch

[jareth-0205]

Good work ignoring everything I said. I'll say it again - the US has a large military because it wants one, not because the rest of the works wants it to have one.

White collar bias

[ka9dgx]

In the job shop / small manufacturing world I now inhabit, it takes about 1/2 hour or so to get everything going in the morning, and about the same time to shut it all down at the end of the day. So, we'd get about 70% of our current productivity if we took this approach. There are many other types of work, as stated above (ER, Medical care, Service industry), where you'd have hire 33% more workers to get coverage. Where's all that money going to come from to pay all and train all these new hires?

Some old white dude (like me) probably wrote this in a comfy office.