This article is related to the initial one, which you can find here: https://steemit.com/productivity/@stephanruhl/reflections-on-productivity
Anyone who has worked in a full-time job is aware of this holy rule, working 8-hours per day. Even the phrase "full-time job" is actually synonym for "8-hour a day" - well, better to call it "at least 8-hour a day". With the exception of some occupations, the question I will share my ideas on is, do we actually need/have to work for 8-hour or longer everyday?
If you make a small Google search with 8-hour workday, you will see that there are plenty of results, both telling about its history, people who are supporting and opposing it, with different reasons. Here is the first paragraph from Wikipedia:
"The eight-hour day movement or 40-hour week movement, also known as the short-time movement, was a social movement to regulate the length of a working day, preventing excesses and abuses. It was started by James Deb and had its origins in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life. The use of child labour was common. The working day could range from 10 to 16 hours, and the work week was typically six days a week."
So as you can see from the above line (well, if you are interested, continue to dig it online for the detailed history of the 8-hour), it came with the Industrial Revolution, which was between 1820 - 1840s. And again, it is clear that it was an improvement that time. So do we still need it after almost 200 years? Are we all working in Industrial Revolution era factories? Do we really need/have to sacrifice 1/3 of our day? - which excludes the commuting time, the time you spent for getting ready etc. Are we really creative for 8-hour non-stop? Or rather, can we be creative and productive, and be "in flow" that long, without medications?
The questions above would go almost forever. Not many people had asked these, not even to themselves. You know, once sth becomes a norm, you dont even realise it, it is just the part of the life. We do not even think about if there are any ways to measure the productivity, creativity and maybe more important, the motivation of the employee.
Employers are happy to see that people comes at 8, start working, then takes a break at 12 for lunch, then at 1 starts working again till 5. And if you are in software business, you know that lunch break never takes that long and job never ends at 5. No need to mention the tools like Slack, other messaging tools and emails which are flowing to you 24/7 (Ever heard any company which considers these as overtime? Of course not ;) ) There is a nice article on Inc: https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-average-worker-is-productive-for-this-many-hours.html to show how actually we spend hour 8-hour in office. And one more here https://blog.bufferapp.com/optimal-work-time-how-long-should-we-work-every-day-the-science-of-mental-strength for some heads up.
Personally, here are the flaws which I think, exists in 8-hour workday rule:
- Time vs Money: If an employer thinks that he/she is paying to the employee for the time spent for work, then why we are not paid for the all of the extra things we do after work and the time spent in commuting? Are we commuting in crowded buses/subways for fun?
- Productivity vs Status Quo: Imagine two different employee, both comes at 8 and leaves at 5. Employee A does his/her daily job in 4 hours, and for the rest of the time he/she checks mails, hangs around social media, and studies some new stuff on MOOCs or tutorials. Employee B doesn't do his/her daily job in 8 hours, because of spending too much time on non-work stuff (social media, checking bank accounts, replying mails), hence he/she works at least 2 hours overtime to catch up. Which one is more productive here? Does Employee A need to stay in office after 4 hours? Can Employee B be motivated to change his/her habits, so he/she can finish the tasks in shorter time? If yes, what would he/she do, if he/she need/have to stay in office longer?
- Illusions: Employers or people who has capital got used to measure money with time (interest rates, RoR, RoI etc all based on time), hence they have strong dogma about working hours for the salary which they pay.
- Human Resources or Human Restraints: Any HR Dept comes up with any ideas on these issues, other than fancy and trendy things like team building activities and so on? Do you need to build a team out of people who have been working together long enough?
Technology is said to make people's life easier and more creative/effective/productive. It is quite easy to compare the technology btw 1800s and 2000s. Is it the same or the gap is too large? Why do we need to work as long as 1800-era worker in 2000s?