Here we shall tell you about the experiences of different countries and companies that sought to improve the conditions of their workers.

Michelle Goodman | BBC Capital
Andrew Bauer needed to find a way to revitalize his production team. “I used to have them working up nine or ten hours per day”, says Bauer, executive director of Royce Leather in New Jersey (USA), a company that produces wallets, suitcases and other leather accessories. But as his employees worked for longer periods of time, their productivity would go down. Last year, after taking responsibility for his father enterprise, Bauer cut down the working day of 15 employees in the assembly chain two or three hours, depending on their position. The employees continued to receive traditional breaks, including the 45 minute period of time to have lunch. Bauer’s goal was to promote efficiency, not to reduce wages. On the contrary, he increased his team’s remuneration a 15%. The seven hour workday was fruitful: productivity grew between 10% and 15% in the daily production of goods. Besides, his employees –most of whom had been in the company between 10 to 30 years-, were very grateful for being able to return earlier to their homes.

Shorter working days have been news lately, particularly thanks to Gothenburg in Sweden. Since July 1^st it has established a 6 hours work day as part of an experiment which shall last a year. In this experiment, some government employees will work less than others, while being paid the same remuneration.

The idea is that workers with shorter working day reach the same goals, but in a more efficient way and with less illness leaves. It is in fact a good idea, but, will it help reducing office working days?

The great productivity experiment

Several previous researches, performed in different countries and aimed to reduce the working day, have thrown contradictory results.

Last year, a research performed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and published by The Economist, came up with the result that the more people work, the less their productivity levels go.

Meanwhile, an investigation done in South Korea, published last year by the Journal of Happiness Studies, found that employees value short working days in theory. Researchers have found that in practice, back in 2004 when the working day was reduced from 44 hours to 40 –establishing Saturdays officially as off days-, there were no improvements as regards employees’ labour satisfaction or their general happiness.

However, if they had less time to do the same amount of work, the stress level was increased. Therefore, in this case the labour burden turned out to be too high as regards the amount of hours to develop them for employees who were already efficient.

By 2005, the Swedish council of Kiruna put an end to a 16 years period of six hours working periods for 250 employees, stating that the program was too expensive and difficult to manage.

According to the council, managing two different sets of employees –one with a six hours working day and another with an eight hours working day-, had turned out to be very complicated. The European news website, The Local, also informed that a similar experiment performed in a hospital in Stockholm generated resentment among employees whose schedules had not been reduced.

Success in short working days is more related to the kind of job performed, the labour burden and supervision, rather than with the country or company that applies the modification. Part of the problem is that there is no reason that a certain working schedule should adjust to every employee or jobs, says Cali Williams Yost, a labour strategist from New Jersey. “In an internationally competitive economy these unique size models are difficult to follow,” states Williams Yost, author of the book “Tweak it: make what matters to you happen every day”.

When short working days do not function

Kenny Kline, from MedPreps, may give proof of this. In 2012 he shortened the working day of 20 fulltime employees that had been hired to write questions for Medicine exams, while keeping their salaries intact. The four months experiment was a complete failure.

“The company’s culture change to worse when we gave the employees only six hours a day to think questions for the exams instead of the usual eight”, points out Kline, co-funder of the company with headquarters in San Louis, Missouri, that sell materials for the preparation of medical exams in the United States. “Definitely people worked harder and we had better results from them”, says Kline. “But they would not interact among themselves and were unhappier at work”.

With little time left for lunch or other breaks, the friendship once enjoyed by the staff reached a dead point. What’s more, by the end of the day the employees were mentally exhausted. “People felt more exhausted working six hours a day due to the intensity of work”, Kline explains.

Bauer, from Royce Leather, can understand the need some people have to increase time in order to increase productivity. While he reduced the working day of his team, he gave the 20 employees working in product design and development an economic incentive and encouraged them to work 10 hours per day instead of the usual 8 hours.

The idea is to create and collaborate with ideas at a slower pace.

.“Undoubtedly, the longer working day has turned the office a quieter place”, says Bauer. “The stress level is lower, making everyone more productive”.

Promote flexibility

To make a short work day be successful, companies need to think about the office schedule as a guideline to be adapted in order to satisfy the different needs from the employees and the businesses, and not as a rigid rule, says Williams Yost.

For example, she says, “what happens with those businesses that must be done at a time when the workplace is closed?” And what about those companies in which employees accumulate 40 hours of work when they are getting paid only for 30 hours?

Jody Miller Greenstone, who has team formed by 75 employees who have chosen between working 10, 20, 30 or 40 hours per week –with according remuneration-, thinks that the key lays in knowing how much time each task demands.

“As a manager, one must make sure that people do not work too much”, says Greenstone Miller, executive director and co-funder of the Business Talent Group, a consulting firm with five offices in the United States and clients in Europe, Asia, Australia, North America and South America. “If they work too much, they end up not being satisfied”, she said.

Debbie Carreau, executive director and funder of Inspired HR Ltd in Calgary, Canada, agrees. To avoid “the continuation of the working week” and as an example for the many Canadian and American companies to which her firm provides services, the 12 people team of Carreau deals with most of its work from 09:00 till 15:00 hours.  After that, the team goes home, keeping watch and often answering emergency e-mails –one or two hours per night- that come from clients with labour accidents, performance problems and resignations.

“People are not productive after a 37 hours week” assures Carreau. “More does not mean better”.

Source: Brando