

Why Germans work fewer hours but produce more - prattbhatt
http://knote.com/2014/11/10/why-germans-work-fewer-hours-but-produce-more-a-study-in-culture/

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Fando
I think its about time everyone seriously considered learning this lesson from
Germany and improved their work ethic. It's amazing that a culture could be so
generally efficient. Compare that with typical work culture elsewhere -
grossly inefficient. We all know this to be true. I worked in a few places and
witnessed how half-assed things could get. It's frustrating and pathetic to
see coworkers stream tv shows for hours, read books, take naps, go out for
coffee 5 times a day, and ultimately accomplish nothing while making 70k+.
This is most prevalent in large organizations with big bureaucratic
structures. I would welcome this change. Focusing on task, eliminating
distractions, having greater accountability, being straight-up, and getting to
the point are all wonderful ideas which should be emphasized and practiced. A
lot of workplaces are great, but a lot still are poor.

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nandemo
> _It 's frustrating and pathetic to see coworkers stream tv shows for hours,
> read books, take naps_

Just curious, where do you live? And in what sort of companies is such
behaviour common?

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Fando
Toronto, Canada. I worked as a dev in a fairly big software company which made
B2B software. There was a dev who would literally do nothing for half the
time. Their productivity was extremely low. They would only work enough to
appear to management that they are busy, but ultimately had the rest of the
department pick up their slack. Of course, management didn't have a clue about
what competent dev work ought to look like and were themselves incompetent,
like most management is. This person worked at the company for years before
being let go. I think this problem stems from management not being able to
relate to the work. I worked at a web dev firm which would contract me out to
a partner company to design websites. I would literally have no boss, or
anyone tell me what to do. Try as I might, I couldn't get clear-cut work
assigned to me from management, who were not devs and thus could not relate.
There was poor organization. I would waste time worrying that I'm not being
productive. I hated the experience for all those reasons. My girlfriend works
at a hospital and tells me about coworkers who work for 10% of the day. They
have been working there for over a decade. A lot of people are hard working,
but most are not. I think given the opportunity, most would slack off, this is
inherent human nature.

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duckingtest
They don't. Germany's GDP per hour worked as % of USA = 90.9%.

[http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=LEVEL](http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=LEVEL)

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greenyoda
First, you can't really tell from this data whether an American actually
produces more than a German _in the same job_. The data covers all the jobs in
the country, and if the US happens to have a higher fraction of employees in
highly paid jobs like investment bankers, lawyers, doctors, etc., it would
raise the average.

Also, do the data for the US account for all the work that employees do after
hours, like answering e-mails and phone calls? Since the kind of employees
that do this are usually exempt from receiving overtime pay, these extra hours
wouldn't be recorded anywhere.

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geldedus
French are in the same case as the Germans: they work less hours but have one
of the biggers productivity in the world.

