
Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day - rbanffy
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/sweden-the-new-laboratory-for-a-six-hour-work-day/360402/
======
tegeek
I live & work in Stockholm, Sweden. I start work at 8:00 & leave at sharp
15:00 to pick my son from day care. And these are the most beautiful days of
my life. I play with my son every day, I'm doing hobby projects, preparing for
summer marathon, read HN & CS papers on cutting edge & getting full 8 hrs
sleep.

Now tell me how can I do that all with working like donkeys?

Human side of life is much more than living in a Software bubble.

EDIT: corrected some typos.

~~~
_zen
Yea, but are you changing the world like Silicon Valley start-ups are?
/sarcasm

~~~
levosmetalo
Switching to 6hr work week _is_ changing the world to be the better place for
everyone.

------
rdl
I don't think 6h/day of work is particularly unreasonable, if you can avoid
losing blocks of time to useless activities (unneeded meetings, or waiting for
people).

If you're remote, and only clock-in when actually working, spending 3-4h/day
working productively can easily outdo someone spending 10h/day in an office.
I've worked in places where my ultimate client billable rate was obscene, and
tracked to the 6min or 15min interval, but we also had "house time" for other
projects. A day where you spent 3h directly working for the customer and
nothing else was perfectly fine (especially if you blocked the entire day out
with "need to be available for client" so no one else could interrupt you.)

Spending the downtime doing actually interesting research (not so much 20%
time as 50% time) was awesome.

~~~
smsm42
How shorter work day would eliminate any useless activities? Useless
activities happen not because work day is too long but because work processes
not organized perfectly. Shorter workday would not make processes any better,
so the same percentage of time would be wasted.

~~~
rdl
When the day is artificially constrained, you have a good excuse to get rid of
non-critical activities. It's like YC -- "meeting with investors for coffee"
(or other good but non-key activities) is always viewed as "a good thing to
do", but over the 3 months of YC you have license to tell them to wait.

~~~
smsm42
This only works for short periods of "burst" activities, if it is routine then
the waste is distributed more or less equally so you get the same percentage
of waste unless you work for very short periods. I.e. if somebody goes to
smoke for 10 mins every 2 hours (just an example), then he would be out for
1/12 of time regardless of how many hours he works, as long as its
substantially more than 2. If he really-really needs to finish something in 3
hours, he may forgo the smoke break once or twice, but if we take a period of
a year, it will revert to regular schedule soon.

------
steveridout
Six-hour days _may_ be more productive, but this won't prove it one way or the
other because:

\- The people working six hour days have been told that this may improve
productivity so the excitement of being part of the experiment may indeed
encourage them to be more effective in the short term

\- They have a strong incentive to work harder because if the experiment
concludes that six hour days are more effective, they will likely get to keep
working six hour days.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
Annoyingly, the article doesn't say why Kellogg's stopped their 30 hour work
week. Is it unsustainable in the long term? Then it might be a good idea then
if A) your business is creative and not an assembly line and B) you plan to
sell your business before the strategy becomes unsustainable. They still had a
small amount of departments working 30 hour weeks until 1985. When the company
was handed over to new management in ~1947, it seems that the management
immediately went on a crusade against 30 hour weeks without reason, creating
incentives to work in 40 hour week departments and other things.[0]

Personally, I loathed 40 hour weeks at jobs where things are repetitive or
physically demanding (I have terrible ankles at 28 from so many on-my-feet
positions. I'd probably work 50 hour weeks at a programming gig, switching
between studying concepts, coding, and studying existing code simply because
you can change up the work sequence.

[0]
[http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962](http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962)

~~~
stuaxo
Depressingly:

[http://money.msn.com/investing/post--what-happened-to-
the-6-...](http://money.msn.com/investing/post--what-happened-to-the-6-hour-
workday)

In the '50s, a new management team arrived, one that may have tended to
"denigrate and 'feminize' shorter hours." They became embarrassed by the short
hours that they were working -- shorter than the shifts worked by men at other
local jobs. They changed their rhetoric, downplaying the freedom that leisure
gave.

Six-hour workdays wouldn't let them keep up with the Joneses, and many men did
not receive much enjoyment from their marginal leisure hours. "Like
management, senior male workers were concerned about the loss of status and
control. Several men told about the friction that resulted when the men spent
too much time around the house: "The wives didn't like the men underfoot all
day." "The wife always found something for me to do if I hung around." "We got
into a lot of fights." Many of the men confessed that they were at loose ends
when they were working six hours. [Mr Zine]

------
belorn
> It's unclear how, or if, a lunch break will factor into the scheme.

It's a common misconception that eight-hour work day means 9-17 everywhere. In
Sweden, the common work day is from 8-17, meaning 8 hours paid time and 1 hour
non-paid lunch hour. To my understanding, it's more or less required by law.

So if you look on how many hours we will be "at work", we will go from working
one hour _more_ than Americans to one hour _less_.

~~~
Brashman
My experience in the US is the same. 9-5 is just a saying. More typically a
work day is 9-6 or 8-5 to account for a 1 hour non-paid lunch.

~~~
Nicholas_C
I'm not really sure where the term 9-5 came from considering I've never had a
job or known anyone who actually worked 9-5 with a one hour lunch.

~~~
antjanus
Yeah, it's what annoys the crap out of me. A 9-5 week means you worked 7 hours
a day. That's a 35 hour week.

:/

~~~
collyw
Huh, why does that annoy you? Too little or too much? That seems kind of
normal to me (well less and less so). Anywhere between 35 and 40 hour week I
would class as normal (though the trend is towards 40).

~~~
antjanus
Oh, it's totally normal. What's annoying is that the saying is "nine to five"
which is supposed to represent "full time" while it doesn't whatsoever.

In the US (at least for office jobs), full time is 40 hours, either 8-5, 9-6,
or somewhere in between. Because of the 1 hour break.

I think that 9-5 is a total acceptable amount of time to work.

------
dpweb
This sounds great for salaried people where an hourly bill rate doesn't play
in, but I doubt will get much traction when you're getting paid by the hour.
Less hours = less revenue and upping the bill rate to compensate that's not
going to catch on. Companies will just view it as a higher bill rate.

Too bad though, because I've worked in alot of offices and from home,
contracting etc.. Clearly at least two hours out of eight are wasted every
day. People take smoke breaks, people chit chat, go to lunch, browse the web,
stay in meetings too long, and on and on. I could see people really trying to
be productive knowing they are only on a six hour day.

~~~
rodgerd
> Too bad though, because I've worked in alot of offices and from home,
> contracting etc.. Clearly at least two hours out of eight are wasted every
> day. People take smoke breaks, people chit chat, go to lunch, browse the
> web, stay in meetings too long, and on and on. I could see people really
> trying to be productive knowing they are only on a six hour day.

Very valid point.

I saw a doco, years ago, about Americans who'd moved to France for work. A
constant comment was the astonishment at how much more productive the French
were per hour in their office environment. They were coming from US workplaces
where the norm was to have a big commute, work an hour or more a day of unpaid
overtime, to one where the sub-40 hour work week was rigidly enforced. The
main thing that went away was zoned-out office workers spending their days
talking about TV and office gossip. (YMMV, of course).

------
netcan
I'm a little torn. On one hand, I have an aversion to things like this being
done in law. It seems wrong to limit people and it makes sense to me that some
people would prefer to work 40 hour weeks or 50 hours every other week. I'm
not extremist in these regard or a libertarian by most definitions but I do
see an inherent bad in coercion like this. It seems to outlaw so many
potentially win-win arrangements.

OTOH, I think the dynamic in labour economies is such that it doesn't seem to
correctly value employee "surplus." I do think that empirically it's hard to
ignore the fact that regulation of labour markets has had successes, some of
them very important. I think most employees would be worse off without labour
laws.

Labour economies (maybe norms is a better word) seem to be much more
influenced by "cultural" forces than "economic" ones. If this market was
functioning in a healthy way, I would expect to see much more variation in
arrangements and less standardization within companies. I believe there's an
explanation to be found in Ronald Coase's "The Nature of The Firm" (1937
Economics paper), but I don't have a mature enough idea to be able to boil it
down to an HN comment.

Laissez Faire vs labour laws aside, I think that the notion that the number of
hours we work today should be lower than 20 years ago is reasonable.

In an increasing number of jobs more hours doesn't mean more work gets done.
For a shopkeeper, dermatologist or factory worker, output per hour is fairly
fixed (and transparent). More hours = more work. For a graphic designer,
policy analyst, medical researcher or social media manager the relationship is
fuzzier. Productivity varies a lot and shorter days can boost productivity. At
the same time, worker productivity is opaque and a 'last person at his desk'
culture often develops with employees trying to demonstrate their commitment.
We are shedding the first kind of job and adding the second.

~~~
rwallace
As a moderate libertarian, I share your aversion to things like this being
done in law. I default to the assumption that the free market is the right way
to solve problems, and I accept the need for government intervention only when
compelled to do so by an overwhelming weight of evidence.

This is an area where I now accept the need for government intervention
because I am compelled to do so by an overwhelming weight of evidence. We now
know that the optimum working week for economic output, let alone quality of
life, is substantially less than forty hours. We also know that it cannot be
left to individual employees to negotiate with their employers. In a perfect
world perhaps it could, but in the real world it cannot. It's one of those
problems that just has to be solved by collective rather than individual
action.

------
jojorox
I also live in Stockholm Sweden and Im furious over how its becoming the norm
here to not strive to become anything. Never take risks.

The plan here is to work for a midsize company with a good secure reputation,
have kids and then just do the bare minimum until you retire.

I think its undermining the intellectual capital we have to not be ambitious,
not work hard and not accomplish more than the bare minimum.

I work a lot more than 6 hours a day. I run two startups, about to quit my
fulltime job to do said startup. I have 7 am meetings, I work weekends and
nights. My girlfriend is not always impressed with how hard I work but she
gets it and supports me.

I think the option should be there, but it should not accepted as default. If
the American dream is to be something the Swedish dream is to be nothing.

~~~
hpaavola
What you do at work does not equal what and who you are. Luckily more and more
people realize that we already have so much wealth that we can change some
income to extra free time.

------
read
I can see an argument a 6-hour day hurts workers. They get less pay while
putting in more effort.

If it's true there are 5 stages to producing ideas, a 6-hour day benefits from
unconscious thinking done away from the task [1] at lower pay. Whereas an
8-hour work day benefits some of a worker's thinking for their non-work
projects, which currently happens on the job.

The substance behind the work is more important than its structure on paper.

[1]
[http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/04/a-techniqu...](http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/04/a-technique-
for-producing-ideas-young/)

~~~
marvin
Sounds like a win-win situation to me. I'd be very willing to take a modest
pay cut while still "giving" my employer the fruits of my subconscious labor.
And if the economy is reasonably efficient, wages will eventually come to
reflect the increase in relative productivity regardless. If they don't, it's
not really a big deal - two extra hours of leisure per day is a big deal.

Hell, putting the stuff you've figured out overnight on paper (or into the
IDE) is very satisfying even in the absence of payment, because for a few
hours, you can be _super efficient_. This always feels like a strong and
productive use of time.

------
themgt
I'm much more productive with 10 hour work days. Get in the zone, write a
shit-ton of code, and then get back to reality. Three or four 10-hour days
sound a lot nicer than 5 6-hours.

~~~
cgh
Yes, I'm with you. I would also value a larger block of days off each week as
there's more potential for trips etc.

A six hour workday would be 30 hours a week. Imagine that as three ten hour
days instead. Wow, that would be fantastic.

~~~
hjnilsson
Well, I think the benefits of the 6-hour day would disappear then. IIRC
correctly research shows that productivity falls steeply after 5 hours at
work, with hour 6-8 being at 75% producitity, and after that 50%
(approximately). So having 3x10 days would kill the benefit of increased
producitivity during the time you are at work, while still costing as much.

~~~
msvalkon
As a policy, this sort of thing probably would not work but the statistic does
not apply to all people. I'd be interested to see a large company which
allowed the workers to decide freely. Measuring results would obviously be
difficult.

------
jqm
I don't think many people work more than six hours a day. Most work probably
considerably less, the fact that they are at work for 8 hours notwithstanding.

If they could remove some of these inefficiencies and return the time to
employees it would be great.

~~~
smsm42
They wouldn't work for net 6 hours either. It's not like the exchange is 8
hours including coffee breaks, Facebook checking and staring at the ceiling to
6 hours pure net uninterrupted work. It's 8 hours with distractions to 6 hours
with distractions.

~~~
jqm
Good point.

There absolutely would still be distractions.

But possibly less per hour in a 6 hour day than an 8, and so still a more
efficient. Some studies on this would be interesting.

------
spikels
Why do people, even (possibly) smart and well-meaning people, think there is
some one size fits all lifestyle that works for everyone? Maybe some
people/jobs work better on different schedules.

And exactly how is this experiment going to collect useful data about the
impacts of a shorter workday? Details matter if this is actually science. If
it is really just politics then who cares as long as it is popular with the
majority.

------
InclinedPlane
I think the entire premise here is wrong. The x-hr work day is based on the
model of factory work. That model is increasingly less relevant to real work.
To imagine that merely changing these outdated labor laws which take factory
work as the norm and tweaking the numbers on them in a "favorable" direction
will somehow magically greater enrich or empower individual workers is like
imagining that changing the laws of horse ownership is going to affect
transportation in the mid 20th century. You're turning a knob that isn't
connected to the right thing anymore. There are ways to empower individual
workers in the 21st century economy, but those ways have very little to do
with factory work, and changing the number of hours they are "forced" to work
is so far removed from what actually matters as to be ridiculous.

~~~
ptr
The governing parties of the city doing this experiment are left-wing, which
tend to be stuck in that kind of thinking. There aren't many factory workers
anymore in Sweden, so I guess it's based on some kind of revolutionary
romantic notion or whatnot.

------
cliveowen
"[...]a year-long trial that would divide some municipal workers into a test
and control group"

We should need more scientific approaches like this to decision making in
politics.

~~~
perbu
Absolutely. There is a political problem here. Nobody wants to be in the
control group. The fairness of the experiment doesn't lend itself well to the
social-democratic thinking of the Nordics (everyone is supposed to be treated
equally).

~~~
catshirt
i'd also have to imagine the control group is going to perform worse because
of the demoralizing nature of being in that group. and the experiment will be
self-fulfilling.

------
forcefsck
How about four 8-hour days per week? Could they schedule this as the next
experiment the following year?

~~~
nilkn
Indeed, I'd value a day off in the week more than just fewer hours per work
day. In fact, personally, I'd work longer hours on the days I do work in order
to compensate--that's how much I'd value a four day work week.

At least in the US, having, say, a Friday off means you can easily run to the
bank or do other personal business that is much easier to do during the week
than the weekend.

~~~
wizzard
One company I worked had 9-hour workdays, and then every other Friday we had
off. It was pretty nice, but it was also before kids came into the picture.
Now a 6-hour workday sounds amazing.

------
danbruc
Something similar seems a good idea to me, too. Example. Germany has 42
million employees and 3 million unemployeds. Reduce working hours from 40 to
37 hours per week - with reduction in salary, but probably not the full 7.5 %
- and hire one new employee for every 13 employees. And there you go - no more
unemployment and more leisure time for everybody. Saved unemployment benefits
can be used to counter salary reduction for maybe a few years. Problems:
salary reduction, small companies, differences in job demand and availability.

~~~
dantheman
There are tons of problems with these types of schemes, the primary one being
that there is management overhead and people aren't substitutable. The more
people doing the same task, the more work will need to be coordinated and thus
overall output would probably decrease.

~~~
nerfhammer
This is called the lump of labor fallacy:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy)

~~~
danbruc
I call the fallacy a fallacy - it seems way to simplistic to me. There is
obviously a fluctuation in work demand, for example all the seasonal work, but
this fluctuation is not arbitrarily large. Take it to the extreme, 20 instead
of 40 working hours per week - how would this not require twice as many
employees, maybe even a few more because of reduced efficiency, to yield the
same output? In essence this is nothing more than more equal distribution of
available work.

~~~
mseebach
It's hard to put this very politely, but you're making a fool out of yourself
now. Lump of Labour fallacy isn't crazy voodoo economics, it's incredibly well
established. Read the Wikipedia article, then look through some of the
references. Your concerns are amply addressed.

~~~
phaemon
No he isn't. I suspect he's starting to correctly identify that Economics has
about as much scientific validity as Astrology: they both have the trappings
of science, but frankly, they're both full of unverifiable and unfalsifiable
nonsense.

I suspect the only reason most people accept it is that they learned it at
school so it _must_ be true.

~~~
kumbasha
My friend, if you do not consult the mystical Tomes of Economycs on Wikipedia,
then the ghostly Vapours will consume you with the aspyct of Mercury.

------
slash-dot
Slightly related:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqgMIRF7acw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqgMIRF7acw).
On a more serious note it will be interesting to see if it works considering
France has been thinking of scrapping the 35 hour work week.

------
jrochkind1
Those two charts are begging to be combined into one two-axis chart, with
average hours per week on one axis, and productivity per hour worked on
another axis.

As it is, as two separate one-axis bar charts, they are mostly
incomprehensible for the intended purpose.

------
up_and_up
Relevant to this discussion:

Utah ends 4-day workweek experiment

[http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/04/utah-ends-4-day-
workweek-e...](http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/04/utah-ends-4-day-workweek-
experiment/)

------
callesgg
How do they messure general work productivity?

~~~
smsm42
This is a great question since depending on the measure the same thing can
give opposite results. Also depending on how the product is linked with hours
worked. If it's direct link and paid by the hour, it's one thing, if it's
indirect link and paid on achieving output goal is another thing, if the
result is binary - done or not, regardless of how many hours is spent, it's
also different.

Given the description, it looks like the position is elderly care. Which is
hard to measure directly, but the indirect measures (e.g. customer
satisfaction, mistake counts, etc.) may actually improve from shorter shifts,
but the costs would probably rise or services will be reduced since you'd need
to either hire people to cover the hours or not serve people in those two
hours. Since there are probably also fixed non-hourly costs to hiring this
would be an additional expense.

------
leccine
I think first thing is to clarify why we have 8 hours work days. It is simply
reflecting to the past when most of the workers worked in a factory. Several
things changed in the last 50 years and nobody was revising these "standards".
I am really glad that Sweden is revising these laws. It would be fair to have
4 days workweeks and 6 hours workdays. That would be closer to fair than the
current situation. Corporate greed has to be stopped and regulated so that
people can get a better life and more time with their family.

