The Benefits Of Decreased Working Hours

As time flies, everybody is expected to meet higher and higher standards and expectations as people and also as employees. The requirements of the time are to look one’s best, be happy, successful, realized in all aspects of life, etc. Working as a white collar puts even more pressure since digital technologies enable us to do more things faster, do them on the go while we commute, or do some work from home remotely. As a result, office workers tend to squeeze a higher amount of work in the same 8-9 working hours but often face the necessity to do their tasks in the evening from home, or on weekends. Digitalized office work made many tasks easier, but now people are left with fewer options for taking a break from all this constant working.

One of the direct consequences is constant and accumulated stress that results in health issues, social issues, and emotional instability. Employees look for different ways to relieve this stress – to find out about some of them read review on alt.com or other relevant resources – but it is hard to relax and reload the mindfully, because the person always remembers that any moment, they can be contacted and given a task. On the other hand, it is impossible to increase the number of working hours, firstly, because this is illegal in the majority of countries, and secondly, because many white-collar workers already work overtime, and adding hours is not an option.

How To Manage Issue?

So, the employers were left with the question – how to cope with the growing amount of tasks for each employee, keep the high level of productivity, and at the same time reduce the level of stress? The answer is pretty unexpected – the working hours should be decreased.

Several big companies in a few European countries have conducted an experiment – instead of increasing the working time in the office, they cut this time in half. As a result, each employee had to work only 4 hours per day. The wages remained the same, which means people were offered to work less for the same money.

The results were stunning. Firstly, the productivity levels have not dropped, as people were so grateful for the new schedule that they felt it was their point of honor to manage the usual routine as before. Secondly, the general efficiency increased, because everybody wanted to do everything quickly and properly and go home; they had less time for the same tasks, and it was their benefit to fit into this time. And thirdly, the level of loyalty increased immensely – when the workers understood they cannot finish their daily tasks in time, they stayed in the office for one of two hours more.

Conclusion

So, what are the benefits of short working hours? They are:

• productivity and efficiency;
• motivated staff who wants to do everything quickly and properly;
• loyal employees.

This system of cut working hours seems a bit of a paradox, but it proved effective for several companies, so maybe other businesses should consider it as well.