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> Not having childcare is not the issue, wanting to spend times with your children is the issue. You can't outsource that. It's simple accounting really: If yo

> Not having childcare is not the issue, wanting to spend times with your children is the issue. You can't outsource that. It's simple accounting really: If you want your employees to work 5 more hours a week, you need to free 5 hours from their schedules. Obviously, quality time spent with children or a spouse is the last thing employees will be willing to sacrifice. But running errands? Cleaning the house? Doctors appointments? Meals at work? Make these frictionless and you'll gain in productivity.

Jtsummers 6y ago
You'll gain hours, but not necessarily productivity. Which is a common mistake in management thinking. An extra hour of work out of an assembly line can produce an extra hour's worth of product, there's a pretty clear and measurable extra output there. In software, and a lot of other design work, this correspondence is less precise. For Cody the Coding Machine you may get a real extra hour of output from him. From many others, you'll find they extend their breaks from 15 minutes to 20 minutes, lunch goes from 30 to 45 minutes, and the extra time is taken up by meetings or answering emails. The productivity doesn't come from extra time, it comes from alleviating stress and increasing the ability to focus. If my thoughts at 2pm are, "Wait, is it my day to pick up the kids? I've got a 3pm meeting, I've got to text the wife to let her know I can't get them today." I'm unfocused. Childcare, consequently, can relieve me of those thoughts. Same thing with bringing in food or having medical and fitness options available. They relieve some stress/unproductive time spent thinking and planning, which will hopefully improve productivity overall, but extra hours recovered from this are not necessarily more productive just by being available.
- mattkrause 6y ago
  Even for actual assembly lines, that’s only true to a point. Data from WWII bomb factories (so, highly-motivated people) shows an asymptotically-smaller gains after about 48 hrs/week.

Jtsummers 6y ago

You'll gain hours, but not necessarily productivity. Which is a common mistake in management thinking. An extra hour of work out of an assembly line can produce an extra hour's worth of product, there's a pretty clear and measurable extra output there. In software, and a lot of other design work, this correspondence is less precise. For Cody the Coding Machine you may get a real extra hour of output from him. From many others, you'll find they extend their breaks from 15 minutes to 20 minutes, lunch goes from 30 to 45 minutes, and the extra time is taken up by meetings or answering emails. The productivity doesn't come from extra time, it comes from alleviating stress and increasing the ability to focus. If my thoughts at 2pm are, "Wait, is it my day to pick up the kids? I've got a 3pm meeting, I've got to text the wife to let her know I can't get them today." I'm unfocused. Childcare, consequently, can relieve me of those thoughts. Same thing with bringing in food or having medical and fitness options available. They relieve some stress/unproductive time spent thinking and planning, which will hopefully improve productivity overall, but extra hours recovered from this are not necessarily more productive just by being available.

mattkrause 6y ago
Even for actual assembly lines, that’s only true to a point. Data from WWII bomb factories (so, highly-motivated people) shows an asymptotically-smaller gains after about 48 hrs/week.