The Work Hours and Workforce Productivity Myth- The Next Challenge of Workforce Management

The Work Hours and Workforce Productivity Myth- The Next Challenge of Workforce Management

Recently came across an article corresponding  the information pertaining to Sweden moving to a six-hour workday. This led to a global debate within the global HR fraternity representing different countries and their views based on various factors ranging from economic to cultural parameters. So, I thought of giving it a go for some thought process, research and learning and what facts I came across are worth sharing with you all. But a general understanding of basic term will make things easier for you.

So, what is Work hour? Who decides it? Is it decided by governments, people or the culture of the country?

Well, technically it is defined as period of time for which one is compensated on the basis of output or performance.  The compensation can be on basis of time rate, piece rate, both or any other form. The roots of determining work hour takes into consideration many factors and has evolved over the period of time with evolvement of human resources right from ancient times and is still evolving. Over a comparative global analysis it becomes more clearer as to in current  scenario work hours does not directly relate to output but the efficiency of the output depends on performance and efforts being put in.

Below is list consisting few countries and their average work hours:

RANK	COUNTRY	AVG. HOURS WORKED
1	Mexico	42.85
2	Costa Rica	42.62
3	Korea	40.85
4	Greece	39.27
5	Chile	38.27
6	Russia	38.17
7	Latvia	37.27
8	Poland	36.98
9	Iceland	35.85
10	Estonia	35.75
11	Hungary	35.73
12	Portugal	35.71
13	Israel	35.63
14	Lithuania	35.27
15	Ireland	35.02
16	United States	34.40
17	Czech Republic	34.15
18	Slovakia	33.90
19	New Zealand	33.88
20	Italy	33.35
21	Japan	33.25
22	Canada	32.77
23	Spain	32.48
24	United Kingdom	32.25
25	Australia	32.00
26	Finland	31.63
27	Luxembourg	31.60
28	Austria	31.33
29	Sweden	30.94
30	Switzerland	30.15
31	Slovenia	30.02
32	France	28.33
33	Denmark	27.62
34	Norway	27.44
35	Netherlands	27.40
36	Germany	26.37

Table Source: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Upon a quick overview we can easily see most of the developed economies have comparatively low average hours in comparison to developing economies. It clearly deduces the fact that time is not directly a function of better economic prospects but rather the amount of efforts being put in along the work.

Thus, in a developing economy like our country where different workforces comes from different background and diverse skills and culture it becomes necessary to develop a holistic approach towards deciding work hours.

It would be interesting to see how the members of HR fraternity and policy makers would come up with strategies along this rising trend of decreasing work hours as the demand is increasing for the same in the country too. With lesser work hours there would be huge impact on work life balance of people , their patterns and behavior as employees and might be resultant change in the economic and industrial dynamics of the country however it would be a challenge in it itself as it should not compromise the growth and output too.

I just hope it goes well for all and soon we see similar changes in India.

Few Interesting Facts on Work hours for few countries:

1.)     Germany – The Home of Audi , Mercedes , Volkswagen,  BMW , Porsche , SAP , Adidas , Puma , Faber Castell , Hugo boss etc & other companies has an average workweek of just 26.37 hours.

2.)     France – the home of companies like Alcatel , Buggati , L’Oreal , Michelin , Renault , Airbus  , Reynolds ,Casio , Christian Dior , Game loft  ,Citroen ,AXA , Essilor , Lacoste Etc has average Male retirement age on 58.5 and female retirement age of 59 with average work hour being  Just around 28.

3.)     Singapore - One of the fastest growing places in the world as per 2015-16 ranking Singapore enacted an 8-hour normal work day, a 44-hour normal working week, and a maximum 48-hour work week

4.)     Papua -The kapaku people of Papua new guinea think it is bad luck to work two consecutive days. The kung community work just two-and-a-half days per week, rarely more than six hours per day.The work week in samoa is approximately 30 hours. 

5.)     Australia - Australia enacted the new maximum weekly hour regulation under a new system created by the Fair Work Act 2009. Unless the additional hours are reasonable, the maximum weekly hours of work of a full-time employee is 38 hours.

6.)     China- China adopted a 40-hour week, eliminating half-day work on Saturdays.

What do you think? Should we introduce lesser work hours in India?

 Are we ready yet? 

 Source : WWW