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?

[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.

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.

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.