Europe's economic powerhouse tests a shorter working week
"Instead of working 40 hours a week across 5 days, Hermann now spends a total of 38 hours at work over 4 working days. Otherwise put, each of KlimaShop's 30 employees works an hour-&-a-half more for each day they are in the office, while having an extra day to themselves each week. Hermann's colleague Michael sees the shift switch as "big progress". "You work much more intensely, everything you do is more precise"👍 https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/2675958/europes-economic-powerhouse-tests-a-shorter-working-week
One of the best things about a regular 32 hour/4 day workweek, that I think many people underestimate:
When you have a week and you feel that there are too many loose ends at the end of your week, you can come in on Friday morning and tie them up without the feeling that a) you compromised your weekend too much, and b) without having loose ends hanging over you for the weekend.
You don’t want to do it regularly, but it helps with stress reduction for me.
Thousands of public employees in Lyon now have the option to work four days a week instead of five, without taking a pay cut.
The south-eastern city, one of France's biggest, is experimenting with a shorter work week in the hope of reducing absenteeism and narrowing the gender gap.
The Backlash against AI is in part, because it's seen as something that will only benefit big corps financially. While we should pass some sensible regulations to manage the coming changes, we should also be thinking more about how to redistribute the benefits.
AI has been trained on the collective output of everyone in society. Everyone should benefit.
Has there ever been a better time to be thinking about a shorter work week?
@artfulrobot maybe "distribute" the benefits would be better phrasing, I am open to other ideas. The point is that AI is being developed based upon the collective achievements of everyone and everyone should benefit.
There doesn't need to be any trickle down. It's about fair distribution. AI promises dramatic increases in productivity, how do we make sure that everyone benefits, rather than allowing a few corporations to reap all the benefits and workers to pay the price?
Buffer, a social media management company, has adopted a four-day workweek since May 2020. The company says the change has improved employee well-being, productivity and retention. Buffer also shares its learnings and best practices with other organizations that are interested in trying out the shorter workweek.
The committee suggested the government use the 100:80:100 model:
"Whereby employees retain 100 per cent of the salary while reducing their hours to 80 per cent while maintaining 100 per cent productivity," it said.
This is an excellent idea for work life balance, families, new parents, productivity, and overall quality of life. I think it will be especially useful for Knowledge Workers — contrary to what many managers say, more hours of work does not increase the quantity of output, and I find that long hours decreases the quality of output and leads to having to fix-up stuff later. If you're serious about achieving good quality at work then don't over-do the hours.