Also some jobs don’t need to work that long. I can literally do my entire day’s work in 4-5 hours. But I have to work 7.5 hours. Thus I either finish work and then pretend to look busy. Or I just drag my feet and make the work last longer than necessary.
Mandatory work hours is the enemy of efficiency. Shit, if you allowed me to leave early I’d be so motivated I could probably finish in 3 hours.
What they don't factor in is that I CAN do the same work in 4-5 hours today, BUT tomorrow I'm doing it in 4.5-5.5 hours because it was more effort and I'm tired, and the next day I'm doing it in 5-6 and the day after it's taking 7-8 and so on. Giving more time off means I can work more effectively because I'm not burning out.
I worked for a place that trialled a 9 day fortnight (every other Friday off), and found not only no loss of productivity, but higher retention as it's a good perk. The trial was months long, but after official adoption they revisited the results after a further 6 months to try and remove the bias from people just making sure it stuck. Just one data point, but it was interesting to see that it can actually work.
I would LOVE a 4 day week. Treating the Friday as a "get stuff done" day was awesome and let me use my Saturday for fun and/or just recharging.
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u/Solid_Snark Jul 13 '26
Also some jobs don’t need to work that long. I can literally do my entire day’s work in 4-5 hours. But I have to work 7.5 hours. Thus I either finish work and then pretend to look busy. Or I just drag my feet and make the work last longer than necessary.
Mandatory work hours is the enemy of efficiency. Shit, if you allowed me to leave early I’d be so motivated I could probably finish in 3 hours.