

The Productivity Myth  - cwan
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/05/the_productivity_myth.html

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baha_man
"Americans already put in more hours than workers in any country in the
world..."

ORLY?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Differences_among_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Differences_among_countries_and_recent_trends)

"By far, workers in South Korea have the longest work hours among OECD
countries. The average South Korean works 2,390 hours each year, according to
the OECD. This is over 400 hours longer than the next longest-working country
and 34% more hours than the average in the United States."

~~~
Vivtek
Well, but that's per capita. That doesn't say anything about the average hours
per worker, because we don't know (or at least _I_ don't know) the relative
figures for actual employment.

~~~
baha_man
"Well, but that's per capita. That doesn't say anything about the average
hours per worker..."

True, but presumably the author's claim is based on reports such as this one,
where the figures are also per capita:

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/439595.stm>

------
pg
Occam's razor says the increase in productivity happened because when
companies had to make cuts during the recession, they cut the least promising
projects.

~~~
kolektiv
Indeed there are many potential reasons why productivity may not have declined
in direct proportion to hours work. Less tiredness, more content workers,
elimination of wasteful activities, firing the least productive people, even
the good old Hawthorne effect. The article jumps straight in and goes for fear
though, without anything to really back that up. It may be true, but it's a
rather bold assertion to stand alone.

I'd like to see it taken a step further though - hours shouldn't be the
measure of worth, sure - that they are is mainly because they're easier to
measure than most other things. Value is good, but I'd like to see things be
even more holistic. Happiness is almost impossible to measure, but worth a go.
I'd love to see a company come out and say "This quarter we produced just as
much as last quarter, but by working 5 hours less a week! Now our staff go
home an hour earlier and spend time with their kids/pets/wii, and we can still
afford to pay them well and make enough to re-invest in the company -
happiness is up!"

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GeneralMaximus
> _Americans already put in more hours than workers in any country in the
> world - and that doesn't include the uncounted shadow work that technology
> makes possible after the regular workday ends._

No, not really. Outsourcing firms in India often keep people at work for ten
to twelve hours at a stretch, and they don't even bother to cover it up. I
think the reason nobody makes a noise about it is that these sweatshops often
hire freshers, who don't know any better.

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krmmalik
Tony Schwartz turned around my attitude towards productivity around in an
instant some 2 years or so ago, when i saw him as a guest speaker at Eben
Pagan's 2007 "Get Altitude" event. It was an awe inspiring speech, and really,
truly resonated with me.

Unfortunately, i'd be violating copyright if i uploaded it, but if anyone can
get hold of it legitimately, i highly recommend it. Its the best 1hr you're
ever going to see on managing your energy and productivity.

I'm hoping to read his book soon too.

~~~
nostromo
Is this it? <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luMpyS3mmLY>

~~~
krmmalik
Yes, thats the one!!

I didnt know someone uploaded it to YouTube. I've searched for it on there
many times!

Good find!

Let me know what you think!

------
patrickk
There was a great article on HN a while back about how employees only do 2
hours of real, actual work per day:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=781182>

p.s. I found this quickly and easily thanks to the Search link below (yay!). I
like this feature, even though some don't see the point.

Regarding this particular article, I anecdotally heard of a case where a
Boston company took on summer interns and had a pretty, shall we say,
'flexible' work arrangement that allowed the students to socialise to their
hearts content but also get the required work done. The deal was that they had
X amount of work to do by Friday each week, but _it didn't matter when or what
days they turned up, as long as the work got done by the Friday deadline_.

So, on a Tuesday and Wednesday each week, the students were monsters of
productivity, getting five days of work hammered out in two (long) days. From
Thursday to Sunday/Monday they emptied their wallets into the many fine
watering-holes around Boston.

There's a lesson to be learned here I think. If I were an employer, I'd like
to think I'd be able to take a ballsy approach like this.

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arethuza
I remember reading in a book "exposing" management consulting business
practices that one major firm of consultants (known as "The Butchers") always
recommended the same thing to companies: sack 25% of your workforce,
regardless of the real problems the company had, the answer was always the
same (of course, as they were being paid to come up with this answer they
pretended to do a lot of detailed analysis to justify this conclusion).

This actually worked - for most companies (especially ones addicated to
management consultants) you _can_ sack 25% of the workforce and see immediate
gains in profitability - which the consultants can then use as references to
get more victims/clients. Of course, in the long term this does a lot of
damage to companies but as long as the short term figures look good nobody
really cares.

The book is:

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rip-off-Scandalous-Management-
Consul...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rip-off-Scandalous-Management-Consulting-
Machine/dp/1872188060)

------
mattm
When France implemented 35 hour work weeks, their productivity actually went
up.

~~~
gaius
And so did their unemployment. Paradoxical, no?

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stretchwithme
When I heard about how productivity was up on npr the other day, my first
thought is that research and development are probably just on the decrease.

And even if you could determine that R&D are down, you don't know if that just
isn't a good development. Maybe a lot of dumb ideas were being developed
before.

This does point out how much information is lost when you look at things in
the aggregate.

People talk about public health rather than the health of individuals. Maybe
its this sort of thinking that leads to the world of Logan's Run. "see how
remarkably healthy our population is? our policies are a success!"

