3 ms·

Annoyingly, the article doesn't say why Kellogg's stopped their 30 hour work week. Is it unsustainable in the long term? Then it might be a good idea then if A)

Annoyingly, the article doesn't say why Kellogg's stopped their 30 hour work week. Is it unsustainable in the long term? Then it might be a good idea then if A) your business is creative and not an assembly line and B) you plan to sell your business before the strategy becomes unsustainable. They still had a small amount of departments working 30 hour weeks until 1985. When the company was handed over to new management in ~1947, it seems that the management immediately went on a crusade against 30 hour weeks without reason, creating incentives to work in 40 hour week departments and other things.[0] Personally, I loathed 40 hour weeks at jobs where things are repetitive or physically demanding (I have terrible ankles at 28 from so many on-my-feet positions. I'd probably work 50 hour weeks at a programming gig, switching between studying concepts, coding, and studying existing code simply because you can change up the work sequence. [0] http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962 http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962

ThomPete 13y ago
You can't compare assembly line work with what most of us do.
gregpilling 13y ago
Workers at Kellogg's voted for more hours and a corresponding wage increase. Last 530 workers went to 8 hour work weeks in 1985.
transfire 13y ago
Maybe not the same reasons, but I read that the four day work week was ended because of benefit costs (e.g. health care coverage). Fewer hours meant more employees, which meant more benefit overhead. I also read that the works held a mock funeral for it. The were not happy going back to five days.
stuaxo 13y ago
Depressingly: http://money.msn.com/investing/post--what-happened-to-the-6-hour-workday http://money.msn.com/investing/post--what-happened-to-the-6-... In the '50s, a new management team arrived, one that may have tended to "denigrate and 'feminize' shorter hours." They became embarrassed by the short hours that they were working -- shorter than the shifts worked by men at other local jobs. They changed their rhetoric, downplaying the freedom that leisure gave. Six-hour workdays wouldn't let them keep up with the Joneses, and many men did not receive much enjoyment from their marginal leisure hours. "Like management, senior male workers were concerned about the loss of status and control. Several men told about the friction that resulted when the men spent too much time around the house: "The wives didn't like the men underfoot all day." "The wife always found something for me to do if I hung around." "We got into a lot of fights." Many of the men confessed that they were at loose ends when they were working six hours. [Mr Zine]

ThomPete 13y ago

You can't compare assembly line work with what most of us do.

gregpilling 13y ago

Workers at Kellogg's voted for more hours and a corresponding wage increase. Last 530 workers went to 8 hour work weeks in 1985.

transfire 13y ago

Maybe not the same reasons, but I read that the four day work week was ended because of benefit costs (e.g. health care coverage). Fewer hours meant more employees, which meant more benefit overhead. I also read that the works held a mock funeral for it. The were not happy going back to five days.

stuaxo 13y ago

Depressingly: http://money.msn.com/investing/post--what-happened-to-the-6-hour-workday http://money.msn.com/investing/post--what-happened-to-the-6-... In the '50s, a new management team arrived, one that may have tended to "denigrate and 'feminize' shorter hours." They became embarrassed by the short hours that they were working -- shorter than the shifts worked by men at other local jobs. They changed their rhetoric, downplaying the freedom that leisure gave. Six-hour workdays wouldn't let them keep up with the Joneses, and many men did not receive much enjoyment from their marginal leisure hours. "Like management, senior male workers were concerned about the loss of status and control. Several men told about the friction that resulted when the men spent too much time around the house: "The wives didn't like the men underfoot all day." "The wife always found something for me to do if I hung around." "We got into a lot of fights." Many of the men confessed that they were at loose ends when they were working six hours. [Mr Zine]