Happiness in
shorterworkday can’tovercome cost Sweden experimentfinds that it boosts
productivity but is too expensive
A controversial experiment
with a six-hour workday in one of Sweden’s largest cities wrapped up this week
with acheerful conclusion: Shorter working hours make for happier, healthier
and more productive employees.
There’s just one catch. The
practice is too expensive and unwieldy to become widespread in Sweden anytime
soon.
The two-year trial, which
took place in the southern city of Gothenburg, centred on a municipal
retirement home where workers were switched to a six-hour day, from eight
hours, with no pay cut. Seventeen new nursing positions were created to make up
for the loss of time, at a cost of around ^700,000, or $738,000, a year.
Although it was small, the
experiment stoked a widespread discussion about the future of work, namely
whether investing in a better work-life balance for employees, and treating
workers well rather than squeezing them, benefits the bottom line for companies
and economies.
“The trial showed that there
are many benefits of a shorter working day,” said Daniel Bernmar, the leader of
the Left party on Gothenburg’s City Council, which had pushed for the
experiment. “They include healthier staff, a better work environment and lower
unemployment.” But the high price tag, and political scepticism about the
practicality of a shorter workday, was likely to discourage widespread support
for taking the concept nationwide.
“The government is avoiding
talking about the issue,” Bernmar said. “They’re not interested in looking at
the bigger picture.” While a growing number of countries and companies are
studying the concept of employee happiness, the idea of improving it through
shorter work hours has by no means gained broad traction. In Gothenburg, the
City Council’s conservative opposition parties derided the experiment as a
utopian folly and sought to kill it, citing high costs for taxpayers and
arguments that the government should not intrude in the workplace. The current
government is also not backing a shorter workweek.
Even the handful of
progressive political groups aligned with Bernmar’s Left party have not made
asix-hour workday in Sweden a priority in their platforms. Nor have large
Swedish companies, including multinationals active around the world, embraced
the idea. Other Swedish towns that previously conducted limited experiments
with a shorter public-sector workweek eventually abandoned the concept, citing
high costs and flawed implementation.
A similar model in France has
been controversial for more than 15 years, ever since a Socialist government
made a 35-hour workweek mandatory.
François Fillon, a
conservative politician who is considered the front runner to become France’s
new president in elections this May, has vowed to kill it if he wins. Companies
of all sizes in France have complained repeatedly that the short workweek
requirement has damaged competitiveness and generated billions in additional
costs. French unions defend the measure as protecting workers from employers
who might otherwise return to more onerous workplace conditions.
Still, some large companies
are beginning to explore the argument that happy workers may make better, more
productive employees.
Amazon, Google and Deloitte
recently began experiments to compress the 40-hour week into four days for some
employees. Amazon, which has come under fire for encouraging employees to work
long hours, announced last summer that it would test a 30-hour workweek for a
small group of employees and managers.
Source | Business Standard | 9 January 2017
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
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