Sweden to trial six-hour public sector workday, pay remains the same.

An experiment held in the second-largest city of Sweden, Gothenburg:

A city council in Sweden is set to cut the number of hours its staff members work down to just six – while keeping them on full pay.

The council’s ruling coalition of left-wing Social Democrat and Green parties has proposed reducing one department to 30-hour working weeks while keeping another unchanged as a control.

One of the departments that has been put forward for the scheme is elderly care, Sweden’s Metro newspaper reported. They would be kept on the same pay as the “control” department and, after a year, their performance would be assessed by researchers.

“We'll compare the two afterwards and see how they differ. We hope to get the staff members taking fewer sick days and feeling better mentally and physically after they've worked shorter days,” Mr Pilhem said.

Experiments involving the six-hour workday have taken place in various countries around the world before. They are based on the theory that after this period of time employees become too tired anyway, reducing both short-term and long-term productivity.

www.independent.co.uk...

In my eyes, very interesting experiment and I do hope the results will be positive. I do not believe in 8-hour-work days, as it is near to impossible to keep the productivity high all day long. Whether physical or mental tasks, at some point the person becomes tired. He/she can continue working, but the quality of work is still affected by the tiredness and can lead to mistakes, as well as affecting the health generally long-term, which leads to more sick days, as well as generally lower productivity. 4-6 hours is ideal in my opinion, definitely not more.

reply to post by Cabin


Will be interesting to see the fallout ... if any.

Can you imagine the outcry if this was proposed in the US. I'm sure there'd be rioting in the streets by the govt sector. It would affect retirement, insurance ... you name it ... except for Congress of course.

Hmmm.

Same pay for less hours ?

Increased workload to get 8 crammed into 6 ?

The story did not mention this.

I'm sure they have good intentions.

Some companies have a one hour (paid) break 1/2 way through 8 hours with success.

Short breaks in between.

reply to post by xuenchen


I've no idea whether the Swedes govt sector salaries are comparable with the private sector. That's another factor to take into account. Some USG salaries are lucky to reach 1/3 ... it's the guarantee of employment and eventual retirement that keep people from wandering off to the private sector.

xuenchen
Hmmm.

Same pay for less hours ?

Increased workload to get 8 crammed into 6 ?

The story did not mention this.

I'm sure they have good intentions.

Some companies have a one hour (paid) break 1/2 way through 8 hours with success.

Short breaks in between.

Where did you find information about increased workload? Or you just meant, 8 hours crammed into 6?

Just some companies? Here pretty much every company gives a paid lunch break, I do not know whether they are legally obliged or not, but I have yet to find a company who does not do this. Requiring someone to work for 8 hours without lunch break,at least for me, seems as torture.

Short breaks are also something that most companies do let people have round here.

I personally usually do 3-4 hour days with 10-15 minutes an hour of breaks, no lunch unless I decide staying for longer. These 3-4 hours do, I try to work at maximum focus. At the end, I manage significantly more than I can in 8-hour day, have tested different hours and at the end, this, at least for me, is brings the best results.

I can see how this could work for salaried people but not hourly unless they get a raise. And while productivity may rise overall, a 25% decrease in time spent working in a day would take a corresponding rise in productivity squeezed into 6 hours. Interesting. Either a loss of overall productivity per day or a dramatic rise in productivity per hour to compensate for shorter hours.

I live in Sweden and here is the facts.

We have different groups of leaders we can choose
in a election. The one's that want to bring down
the hours to 6 from 8 are the (Vänster partiet)

They represent the people.
But the one's in control here now is (Moderaterna)
They are exactly as Obama. They only care for the rich
and treat the poor like s***.

Even Putin dissed him in this video:


What happens in the video:
Someone that is not a journalist (private person) wanted to ask Putin a question
and Putin started to answer and got cut because Moderaterna had made a staged
act with the questions. They where all planed and Putin said, And the world
complains at us we have no freedoms. His right, Sweden is more like a slave then a country.
But it's a expert in showing the world we have it perfect here. That's the big lie.

Love
Stoneocean.info

Nearly every person I know who works 5 days a week, 8 hours or more a day, are miserable sacks of crap. Every second sentence out of their mouth is a complaint about how they work too much and still struggle to get by. It's obviously a terrible and even immoral system, our modern day world expects far too much from us, we are treated like cattle whose only purpose is to be exploited by big businesses. I bet ancient cave men didn't even work half as much as modern men, food was their main concern and I'm sure they didn't spend 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, hunting for food. Even with all our modern technological conveniences we still manage to work more than ancient men who had none of those conveniences.

If I owned my own business I wouldn't make my employees work more than 4 days a week, and I'd let them choose which 3 days they want to take off every week. And they'd not have to work more than 6 hours a day, unless they wanted to. And their pay would be equal to a normal full time job. Now that might sound like a doomed business model, but it's not. It's only doomed if the shareholders expect to get most of the business profit instead of paying their employees fairly for the work they do. When employees are paid fairly they get passionate about their work and put more effort into it, it's no longer seen as a boring waste of their time. As a result the quality of the product and customer service is dramatically increased.

The real problem is the pyramidal structure of modern businesses. All the focus is placed on maximizing shareholder profits, the business world is ruled by greed, and it's nearly impossible to find a business owner who cares about more than just money. The employees aren't treated like real people, they are treated like disposable business assets which must be exploited for the lowest possible cost. There is nothing stopping a business from treating its employees like real people and paying them fairly, whilst making a profit at the same time. The general idea that a business cannot be successful without being unrelenting towards its employees is absolutely false, and experiments like this one will prove it.

reply to post by FarzadEghlima

But the one's in control here now is (Moderaterna)
They are exactly as Obama. They only care for the rich
and treat the poor like s***.

Blaming the government is stupid, because the majority of businesses are private. It's the private business owners which have started this 5 days a week, 8 hours a day trend, and it's the private businesses which propagate this trend instead of thinking outside of the box and trying new ideas. And it's the Swedish government which is brave enough to try this in the public sector, so I don't think your government is quite as bad as you make it out to be...

reply to post by Cabin


Great idea I agree!

reply to post by Cabin


While I agree that working 8 hours straight does not work for me, my solution is to charge a higher hourly rate.

Also, these are not "jobs" per se as they are public service positions for a city, attempts to enforce the same artificial result in the private sector would be disruptive and most likely cost jobs.

That said, I too am interested in the outcome of the experiment. I have no pony in this race, just a healthy skepticism.

A city council in Sweden is set to cut the number of hours its staff members work down to just six – while keeping them on full pay.

reply to post by Cabin


I just find it kinda funny that it is the govt workers getting the 6 hour day. I realize it is an experiment/study but sounds exactly like what our govt would do.

I hardly think an 8 hour work day is too much. We can also choose to work 4 -10 hour days without overtime pay.
We do get 2 15 minute paid breaks and 1/2 hour unpaid lunch. Most jobs choose to work through our afternoon break and leave 15 minutes early.

A four day week equals full employment. Oh no tptb can not have that. People would enjoy their lifes. War would be a thing of the past.

xuenchen
Hmmm.

Same pay for less hours ?

Increased workload to get 8 crammed into 6 ?

The story did not mention this.

I'm sure they have good intentions.

Some companies have a one hour (paid) break 1/2 way through 8 hours with success.

Short breaks in between.

Here in the US? So with "short breaks" and a one hour paid lunch you work 6 and a half hours out of 8? Please show some examples of this. I've never heard of it.

CJ

xuenchen
Hmmm.

Same pay for less hours ?

Increased workload to get 8 crammed into 6 ?

The story did not mention this.

I'm sure they have good intentions.

Some companies have a one hour (paid) break 1/2 way through 8 hours with success.

Short breaks in between.

OMGZ !!!11!!!! People not wanting to work themselves into a early grave!!!! how shocking and commie of Sweden!!!!Maybe the USA better invade and bomb some American work ethic into there dirty red commie brains
/Sarcasm


If you actually working hard then quite frankly keeping that productivity up for 8 hour, 5 or 6 days a week over 40 odd years is not sustainable.

Work smarter not harder its as simple as that.

Plus in the EU or work ethic is a lot different. studies show American are more willing to waste time at work and take more breaks than EU counter parts in some places. So likely those 6 hours in Sweden will be more productive than a American 8 hours.

Here in the States government offices usually close when people are finishing their own work day. Which means if you need services and are employed, you have to plan up to months ahead just to get something done at the local government offices. Or race on your unpaid 30 minute lunch break and hope there is no line. Which almost certainly there will be because other people are hoping to do the same. They dont call it "the rat face" because it sounds cute.

reply to post by Cabin

Where did you find information about increased workload? Or you just meant, 8 hours crammed into 6?

I didn't. That's why I asked the question ???

Just some companies? Here pretty much every company gives a paid lunch break, I do not know whether they are legally obliged or not, but I have yet to find a company who does not do this. Requiring someone to work for 8 hours without lunch break,at least for me, seems as torture.

Yes, just some. Some others make you "clock out" (unpaid lunch maybe 1/2 hour) and maybe two 10 or 15 minute paid breaks. Depends on the employer, the type of job, or what the union contract (if any) says. Lots of variables and lots of State laws that are different.

reply to post by ColoradoJens


I actually had a job that did that (machine maintenance) and I had the option of taking the 1-hour paid break in increments if I wanted to. Didn't have to "clock-out".

Similar structures are common in the Las Vegas casino jobs with the card dealers.

I don't live there right now so I don't have access to the employee guidelines.

Maybe some members that work in Las Vegas can comment.

reply to post by crazyewok


ROFLOL

I'm not criticizing.

Just asking questions.

If they only work 6 and get paid for 6, that sounds like a partial lay-off.

And paid breaks come into question. Less break time in 6 could easily mean more workload per day.

When they were on 8 hours, did they get paid for breaks?

Lot's of questions.

The story was vague as hell.