5-Hour Workday

I wrote the following post back in October 2015. Although I think it was a great idea, we now do work for the normal 8 hours. Is just convention, regression to the mean? Or is it also because we enjoy the time spent there? I don’t have the right answer, but none the less it’s very interesting to do this again sometime in the future.

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In 1926 the Ford Motor Company introduced the 40-hour workweek. Ford was one of the very first to do this. Ford had two reasons for this move. The first is explained best in his own words: “It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either ‘lost time’ or a class privilege.” The second reasons is an increase in productivity, he wanted people to use the time on the job in a more effective way. Today we, at Queal, are experimenting with the same policy.

5-Hour Workday

It’s not 1926 anymore and we do different work than the people on the assembly line. Our work requires us to think creatively, to give all of our attention to coming up with novel solutions. And what we (and others) have noticed is that our brains don’t work that fast after a while. There are diminishing returns after working for a few hours. The best things happen in the morning when you are still fresh. So from today onwards, we will work between (approximately) 9 and 2.

For myself, and hopefully my colleagues too, this brings two big benefits. The first is that my pay per hour effectively doubles. The same amount of revenue and half the hour, you do the math. The second is that I will use my free time to learn more. I’ve always been learning, now I have more time to follow Coursera courses, visit a museum or take up a new hobby.

I will report back next week with our findings!