Shorter working week

[TJC1]

I think 37 hours a week is about right for most people.

 

However, there are a lot of firms that encourage a macho long hours culture, where anyone who works their hours and leaves on time is actually "leaving early" and unlikely to get promoted. It's funny when an efficient worker gets through more work in 37 hours than the macho worker does in 50 to 60, but the latter is the one getting rewarded for their time mismanagement (and spending all day boasting about how late they worked).

 

Anything from 37.5 to 60 is standard. More for some jobs. And as a nation we suffer from stress and low productivity. Somethings wrong.

 

---------- Post added 07-08-2015 at 10:33 ----------

 

If you can't concentrate intensely for more than about 45 mins, I don't think we'd ever offer you a job as a fee earner

 

 

Studies were conducted that show concentration drops after this time.

Its not a case of cant. Im talking productivity.

 

---------- Post added 07-08-2015 at 10:38 ----------

 

I think it's well established that most people can't concentrate fully for much longer than 20 minutes.

 

Thats funny. Because L00b reckons his guys are super human and can concentrate longer than normal humans!

 

The point is productivity. Which is either looking at processes or the way you work. All I hear is businesses and industries that control workers who have no say in the matter. Which is utter rubbish. Everyone can find efficiencies even busy workers.

[L00b]

I think it's well established that most people can't concentrate fully for much longer than 20 minutes. That doesn't mean you can't do a 6 hour exam, you look up from the questions every so often though and take a breath or a sip of water.

There's only 1 question in that particular exam But, and unsurprisingly, a small Himalaya of preparation work and rivalling Tolstoi's War & Peace when writing the answer

 

Stats paint enough of a picture: average pass rate over the past 2 decades is sub-27%, average first time pass rate sub-15%; year-in year-out half of the attrition rate is getting it too wrong, the other half is running out of time after 6 hours (told you there isn't a minute to spare). "Gibbering wrecks" doesn't begin to describe sitters exiting the exam room, think more like PTSD

 

It's extreme, admittedly (so much so that it's finally being 'downgraded' to 4 hours as of next year...No more sorting men from boys ). I suppose it amounts to the final stress-testing of professionals before declaring them fit to be let loose on the public.

 

My day-to-day norm is concentrating hard on e.g. drafting a specification, or a response to an exam report, 1.5 to 2 hours at a time, at least twice a day, with further shorter bursts between. With SF as a welcome ad hoc exutory in-between

Thats funny. Because L00b reckons his guys are super human and can concentrate longer than normal humans!

There's nothing super-human about it. It's a simple objective statement that your average STEM PhD holder has better powers of concentration (I would call them 'honed') than your average 5 GCSEs or RSA II holder, and that both are employed in respective jobs that call on such powers of concentration in proportional amounts. I don't expect my secretary to be able to concentrate hard on a telecoms patent job for an hour or longer. But I expect it of my PhD trainee. And I expect my secretary to concentrate hard on typing a 10 minutes dictation accurately. Edited August 7, 2015 by L00b

[TJC1]

Not a chance. We run as lean and mean as our workload and work processes allow. That's services in the private sector for you, the 2008-2011 years were very formative for all (who needed it) in that respect.

Going by my timesheets, I make mine between 1 and 2 per week, average. SF posting included in that.

If you can't concentrate intensely for more than about 45 mins, I don't think we'd ever offer you a job as a fee earner

 

Trainee fee earners can't start in our game without a STEM 1st degree as a minimum, and the norm these days is actually PhD. Gives you an idea about the concentration capacities required in the job, day-in, day-out. One of the professional exams (sittable after a minimum of 3 years on-the-job training) is a 6 hour job, and there isn't a minute of it to spare, let me tell you

Of course. We'd hire more bodies, pay everyone 20% or so less, and ultimately the Exchequer would be crying in its empty tax cup.

 

The statutory 35 hour week in France is a failure, long been acknowledged as such and a major contributor to keeping France's economy moribund since 2008.

With respect, utter poppycock, TJC1. If I am made to work 20% hours less, 20% less work gets done (see above, non-compressible), therefore I bill out 20% less, and the firm is x % (my 20% less, pro-rata) down on turnover.

 

With respect your thinking is rigid and in straight lines if you believe when an employee works 20% less he is 20% less productive. The point of a standard work week reduction is a reduction in hours, not in output.

[Fudbeer]

In my experience plenty of people who work loads of overtime/extra hours for free spend half that time boasting about it and the rest taking extra/longer breaks to compensate.

[TJC1]

Read ROWE, books like this changed my thinking. You might think this does not apply to my industry or it doesnt work etc, but Im sure you can take lessons from anything, the lesson is to be open to change and do something different not the same as before.

 

---------- Post added 07-08-2015 at 10:59 ----------

 

In my experience plenty of people who work loads of overtime/extra hours for free spend half that time boasting about it and the rest taking extra/longer breaks to compensate.

 

Mine too! Funny that.

[L00b]

With respect your thinking is rigid and in straight lines if you believe when an employee works 20% less he is 20% less productive.

In my particular professional context (in which I have worked for 15 years and am now intimately familiar, and the reason why I stick to what I know) it's not rigid, it's objective.

 

The nature of the work is what it is, and won't change much, because most aspects of it arise from law.

 

The workload is what it is, and won't change much, again because most aspects of it lie in practicing law.

 

Our workload capacity is what it is, and is pretty lean by industry benchmarks (twice-yearly). There's probably scope to improve this, that and the other, but (i) not to the extent of affording a reduction of hourly activity/presence by 20% and, because we're lean, (ii) not at the expense of disrupting workload and workload capacity, even if only temporarily - which will have to be caught up.

The point of a standard work week reduction is a reduction in hours, not in output.

The point is, it doesn't matter how much you want it to be so, this is not a universally applicable solution, because context and Real Life™. Edited August 7, 2015 by L00b

[Cyclone]

With respect your thinking is rigid and in straight lines if you believe when an employee works 20% less he is 20% less productive. The point of a standard work week reduction is a reduction in hours, not in output.

 

You keep saying this as if it's obviously and easily possible. And nobody seems to agree with you that it is.

 

---------- Post added 07-08-2015 at 11:08 ----------

 

The point is productivity. Which is either looking at processes or the way you work. All I hear is businesses and industries that control workers who have no say in the matter. Which is utter rubbish. Everyone can find efficiencies even busy workers.

 

That seems unlikely TBH. If everyone can find efficiencies that easily, then someone should ask why they aren't already doing so and being more productive...

[TJC1]

There's nothing super-human about it. It's a simple objective statement that your average STEM PhD holder has better powers of concentration (I would call them 'honed') than your average 5 GCSEs or RSA II holder, and that both are employed in respective jobs that call on such powers of concentration in proportional amounts. I don't expect my secretary to be able to concentrate hard on a telecoms patent job for an hour or longer. But I expect it of my PhD trainee. And I expect my secretary to concentrate hard on typing a 10 minutes dictation accurately.

 

No you misunderstand me. Im saying concentration diminishes, its not that you just cant concentrate. With a compound effect.

 

E.g.

I can concentrate for 2 hour periods, for long stretches of time but i can say with certainty production suffers and quality and after weeks of going like this my brain is fried and im physically and mentally exhausted.

 

Although I may still be working at same ratedue to demands. Its perceived output not actual.

Edited August 7, 2015 by TJC1
....

[Cyclone]

There's only 1 question in that particular exam But, and unsurprisingly, a small Himalaya of preparation work and rivalling Tolstoi's War & Peace when writing the answer

 

Stats paint enough of a picture: average pass rate over the past 2 decades is sub-27%, average first time pass rate sub-15%; year-in year-out half of the attrition rate is getting it too wrong, the other half is running out of time after 6 hours (told you there isn't a minute to spare). "Gibbering wrecks" doesn't begin to describe sitters exiting the exam room, think more like PTSD

 

It's extreme, admittedly (so much so that it's finally being 'downgraded' to 4 hours as of next year...No more sorting men from boys ). I suppose it amounts to the final stress-testing of professionals before declaring them fit to be let loose on the public.

 

My day-to-day norm is concentrating hard on e.g. drafting a specification, or a response to an exam report, 1.5 to 2 hours at a time, at least twice a day, with further shorter bursts between. With SF as a welcome ad hoc exutory in-between

There's nothing super-human about it. It's a simple objective statement that your average STEM PhD holder has better powers of concentration (I would call them 'honed') than your average 5 GCSEs or RSA II holder, and that both are employed in respective jobs that call on such powers of concentration in proportional amounts. I don't expect my secretary to be able to concentrate hard on a telecoms patent job for an hour or longer. But I expect it of my PhD trainee. And I expect my secretary to concentrate hard on typing a 10 minutes dictation accurately.

 

Phd's, from observation, seem to involve very short periods of concentration and a lot of hair pulling out. At least from what I've observed.

It's just a fact that humans can't maintain the highest level of attention for more than about 20 minutes (I might be getting the exact number of minutes wrong, but it isn't in the period of hours).

You CAN obviously continue to do a task that takes significantly longer, not being able to maintain the highest level of attention doesn't mean you suddenly stop and start playing angry birds.

[TJC1]

In my particular professional context (in which I have worked for 15 years and am now intimately familiar, and the reason why I stick to what I know) it's not rigid, it's objective.

 

The nature of the work is what it is, and won't change much, because most aspects of it arise from law.

 

The workload is what it is, and won't change much, again because most aspects of it lie in practicing law.

 

Our workload capacity is what it is, and is pretty lean by industry benchmarks (twice-yearly). There's probably scope to improve this, that and the other, but (i) not to the extent of affording a reduction of hourly activity/presence by 20% and, because we're lean, (ii) not at the expense of disrupting workload and workload capacity, even if only temporarily - which will have to be caught up.

The point is, it doesn't matter how much you want it to be so, this is not a universally applicable solution, because context and Real Life™.

 

Every business can improve. Im not belittling your 15 years of exp btw.