Happy Labor Day weekend everyone!
As we lament the end of summer and the beginning of the long slog through fall and winter we probably don't even spend a moment to think about the purpose of Labor day and what it signifies. And while i'm not actually writing about that, I am reminded of an article I read about the 8-hour work day and how the concept relates to our failure to associate activities with our goals.
Work researcher and columnist Sara Robinson wrote in Salon.com that the labor movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries helped establish the 40 hour a week concept as commonplace. And during that time there were countless research studies into the benefits of the idea. Based on that research she notes, Henry Ford reduced his plant workers’ daily hours from 9 to 8, resulting in an increase in productivity. Competitors quickly followed suit. Even into the 1960’s research indicated the benefits of limiting work to 40 hours a week. Robinson writes that:
“What these studies showed, over and over, was that industrial workers have eight good, reliable hours a day in them. On average you get no more widgets out of a 10 hour day than you do out of an eight hour day. Likewise, the overall output for the work week will be exactly the same at the end of six days as it would be after five days.”
What shouldn’t get lost in that analysis is how the same productivity occurs in two separate time periods. It’s not like a ten-hour a day worker produces widgets for 8 hours then sits back and does nothing even though they are on the clock for two more hours. They are still producing, albeit at a much slower rate, understandably because of fatigue, apathy, and lack of sustained concentration. So in those last two hours if they are still producing widgets, and they average the same total amount over the entire time period as if they had only worked 8 hours, then logically in the first eight hours of a ten hour work day they produced less than they did in a standard eight hour day. Think about that, because the worker knew he had more time to produce he actually became less productive.
But there are two productivity models at play here. This model is based on a manufacturing and productivity metric - produce as many items as you can in a certain amount of time. There is no set goal, other than maybe a minimum quota. The only thing set is the amount of time in which to work. Your productivity is output based. Unfortunately in non-manufacturing, non-quota based employment models we apply the same metric. Work for more time and do as many things possible in that time period. There is no correlation of our productivity to the ultimate goal. In non-manufacturing settings our goal maybe to close a sale, ace the final exam, etc. But we confuse the models and replace making widgets with sending emails, creating presentations, going to meetings, creating spreadsheets. Although this work may be extremely valuable, what is the connection to our outcome? We too often assume that by working more, we are more effective and productive and may be surprised when our efforts do not result in achievement of the goal.
Song of the Day
Well this is certainly not in support of any goals you may have and in fact may set you back temporally and intellectually, but who cares. In honor of viral song parodies the song of the day is Korean star PSY's "Gangnam Style", subsequently parodied by the University of Oregon Duck mascot et al.
There are few words to describe this video. Funny, random, disturbing, addictive...none do it justice.
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