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One of the lessons of trying to optimize worker productivity, health and happiness during the industrial revolution is that almost any change was an "overwhelmi

One of the lessons of trying to optimize worker productivity, health and happiness during the industrial revolution is that almost any change was an "overwhelming success" during the trial period, because of some combination of (1) a change of routine, (2) placebo effect -- people like the idea that someone is trying to help them and their mood improves accordingly. Might even be true here (it would be nice!), but in a national experiment with high importance given to the outcome and a highly desirable result (fewer hours same pay) I cannot imagine that the productivity in this trial period will be the same as the steady-state outcome.

ashtonkem 5y ago
That argument was used against a lot of things that turned out to be a good thing, like the 40 hour work week. What’s your suggesting other than naysaying this trial?
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  I'm suggesting we have 0 data, and this study is nothing more than an opportunity for people to advocate for the policies they wanted anyway. Which is fine, you can say that 4-day weeks is better b/c it's nicer! That's ok! Just don't try to dress this fluff up as science.
  - soganess 5y ago
    That just seems like moving the goal post. Without a trial to explore efficacy, it is a pie-in-the-sky idea that shouldn't be taken seriously. When a trial happens...well this trial isn't really indicative of how people will truly behave when not in trial... we should just discount the results. I guess there really are no true Scotsman in Iceland.
  - npunt 5y ago
    This was a four year study involving 2500 participants. You may feel the evidence is insufficient to make the policy changes they did as a result, but if you feel this is fluff dressed up as science it might be nice to understand what you found problematic about this study's methods for it to not qualify as adding to the body of scientific evidence we have on this topic.
  - ncallaway 5y ago
    > I'm suggesting we have 0 data But you’d be wrong, because we now have some data. You can argue the quality of the data is insufficient to draw a conclusion, but it seems… extreme to argue that the data that was collected has 0 value.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      One gets the feeling that the issue is less “we don’t have any data” and more “I disagree with what the data is saying”.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- SilverRed 5y ago
  They raise a good point. I would expect a huge boost in productivity during a trial period as workers are hyped about the change and want to prove it works. But that they may eventually wear out and return to normal but with less hours now. I don't think OP is suggesting that the findings are outright wrong, but that long term studies are required to know exactly how things play out. We have so many short term trial results but none that I have seen which show the effects after multiple years.
  - BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
    I can attest to a pattern of management introducing a change and realizing substantial benefits that don’t hold up over time. For whatever reason, the initial boost isn’t sustained and some other change is introduced in order to boost numbers and the process repeats. Now I personally would love a shorter work week. I actually think much of the 8-hour workday is chock full of non productive time that can be cut safely. But I see what the other user is getting at. Just because this study produced great results it doesn’t mean that this change produces sustainable effects.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      The trial ran for years. That’s well outside the range of “finicky management trialed something and we got a short term boost” effects.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Why would you expect a huge productivity boost when reducing working hours? Isn’t this setting the bar unreasonably high? Heck, isn’t cutting hours and maintaining output actually a net increase in per hour productivity? Also, why is productivity even the golden standard here? Why can’t we consider the well being of actual people in this discussion?
hellbannedguy 5y ago
I've only met one person who wasen't for a four day 10 hr/day work week. He was a Electrician acquaintance of my father. He was beyond a odd duck. His idea of a fun weekend was painting his house. I'm not kidding. I used to talk to my father a lot over a four day work week. His union almost got it, but they backed out at the last moment. I still think it was a payola thing from the contractors! It just makes so much sence in certain fields. Most of my work life has been construction in San Francisco. Just getting to, and back, from the job site is a hassle. A four day work week would be grand. Even though the work is back breaking, working ten, or eight hours did not affect productivity, or at least with me. I would still be an union electrician making twice what I do now if they offered a four day work week. (This mainly goes for union construction, and office jobs. Non-union jobs work their employees to hard. I don't know how most of those guys even last 8 hours. If you happen to read this, and are in construction try to get into a union. Just trust me.)
- paulcole 5y ago
  > I've only met one person who wasen't for a four day 10 hr/day work week. Now you’ve met 2! I hate working 8 hours a day. 0% chance I’ll ever work a schedule of 10-hour days. Who downvotes this lol?
  - brian_cunnie 5y ago
    ten hour days are hard for me—I start fading at the 7th hour I do love a four-day work week, but with 8-hour days, and I've been lucky enough to pull that off for the last 15 years. There's a downside though: it makes switching jobs much more difficult because few companies want to hire someone who only works 4 days/week.
    - paulcole 5y ago
      Yeah I’ve told employers who’ve asked about 4-10s that I’d just phone it in (at best) the last 2 hours of the day. My thing is that I’m an early riser and have a chronic illness that means my most productive hours are 6AM to 2PM. Works great at my current job — about one week a month I shift things a bit for more meetings between 2 and 4, but I don’t know how easy it’d be to find another similar situation.
cycomanic 5y ago
Actually the lesson of optimizing productivity over the last 100 years is that the benifits have almost exclusively gone to the "capitalists" (in the sense of the people financing work with their capital) and not benifited workers. With the productivity gains that we saw over the last century we should be working 1-2 day weeks for the same standard of living (fun fact many economists of the 1900s were worrying about people not having enough to work in the future). What happened is that people work more for the same standard of living instead, the middle class is disappearing and the gap between rich and poor is widening.
neilwilson 5y ago
We've been arguing about the "Hawthorne Effect" since the term was coined.

ashtonkem 5y ago

That argument was used against a lot of things that turned out to be a good thing, like the 40 hour work week. What’s your suggesting other than naysaying this trial?

bpodgursky 5y ago
I'm suggesting we have 0 data, and this study is nothing more than an opportunity for people to advocate for the policies they wanted anyway. Which is fine, you can say that 4-day weeks is better b/c it's nicer! That's ok! Just don't try to dress this fluff up as science.
- soganess 5y ago
  That just seems like moving the goal post. Without a trial to explore efficacy, it is a pie-in-the-sky idea that shouldn't be taken seriously. When a trial happens...well this trial isn't really indicative of how people will truly behave when not in trial... we should just discount the results. I guess there really are no true Scotsman in Iceland.
- npunt 5y ago
  This was a four year study involving 2500 participants. You may feel the evidence is insufficient to make the policy changes they did as a result, but if you feel this is fluff dressed up as science it might be nice to understand what you found problematic about this study's methods for it to not qualify as adding to the body of scientific evidence we have on this topic.
- ncallaway 5y ago
  > I'm suggesting we have 0 data But you’d be wrong, because we now have some data. You can argue the quality of the data is insufficient to draw a conclusion, but it seems… extreme to argue that the data that was collected has 0 value.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    One gets the feeling that the issue is less “we don’t have any data” and more “I disagree with what the data is saying”.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
SilverRed 5y ago
They raise a good point. I would expect a huge boost in productivity during a trial period as workers are hyped about the change and want to prove it works. But that they may eventually wear out and return to normal but with less hours now. I don't think OP is suggesting that the findings are outright wrong, but that long term studies are required to know exactly how things play out. We have so many short term trial results but none that I have seen which show the effects after multiple years.
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
  I can attest to a pattern of management introducing a change and realizing substantial benefits that don’t hold up over time. For whatever reason, the initial boost isn’t sustained and some other change is introduced in order to boost numbers and the process repeats. Now I personally would love a shorter work week. I actually think much of the 8-hour workday is chock full of non productive time that can be cut safely. But I see what the other user is getting at. Just because this study produced great results it doesn’t mean that this change produces sustainable effects.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    The trial ran for years. That’s well outside the range of “finicky management trialed something and we got a short term boost” effects.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Why would you expect a huge productivity boost when reducing working hours? Isn’t this setting the bar unreasonably high? Heck, isn’t cutting hours and maintaining output actually a net increase in per hour productivity? Also, why is productivity even the golden standard here? Why can’t we consider the well being of actual people in this discussion?

hellbannedguy 5y ago

I've only met one person who wasen't for a four day 10 hr/day work week. He was a Electrician acquaintance of my father. He was beyond a odd duck. His idea of a fun weekend was painting his house. I'm not kidding. I used to talk to my father a lot over a four day work week. His union almost got it, but they backed out at the last moment. I still think it was a payola thing from the contractors! It just makes so much sence in certain fields. Most of my work life has been construction in San Francisco. Just getting to, and back, from the job site is a hassle. A four day work week would be grand. Even though the work is back breaking, working ten, or eight hours did not affect productivity, or at least with me. I would still be an union electrician making twice what I do now if they offered a four day work week. (This mainly goes for union construction, and office jobs. Non-union jobs work their employees to hard. I don't know how most of those guys even last 8 hours. If you happen to read this, and are in construction try to get into a union. Just trust me.)

paulcole 5y ago
> I've only met one person who wasen't for a four day 10 hr/day work week. Now you’ve met 2! I hate working 8 hours a day. 0% chance I’ll ever work a schedule of 10-hour days. Who downvotes this lol?
- brian_cunnie 5y ago
  ten hour days are hard for me—I start fading at the 7th hour I do love a four-day work week, but with 8-hour days, and I've been lucky enough to pull that off for the last 15 years. There's a downside though: it makes switching jobs much more difficult because few companies want to hire someone who only works 4 days/week.
  - paulcole 5y ago
    Yeah I’ve told employers who’ve asked about 4-10s that I’d just phone it in (at best) the last 2 hours of the day. My thing is that I’m an early riser and have a chronic illness that means my most productive hours are 6AM to 2PM. Works great at my current job — about one week a month I shift things a bit for more meetings between 2 and 4, but I don’t know how easy it’d be to find another similar situation.

cycomanic 5y ago

Actually the lesson of optimizing productivity over the last 100 years is that the benifits have almost exclusively gone to the "capitalists" (in the sense of the people financing work with their capital) and not benifited workers. With the productivity gains that we saw over the last century we should be working 1-2 day weeks for the same standard of living (fun fact many economists of the 1900s were worrying about people not having enough to work in the future). What happened is that people work more for the same standard of living instead, the middle class is disappearing and the gap between rich and poor is widening.

neilwilson 5y ago

We've been arguing about the "Hawthorne Effect" since the term was coined.