If any Irish political party wants to introduce this, they’ll be elected by a landslide.
Businesses across Sweden are switching to a six-hour working day, believing that shorter working hours actually increase productivity and help to eliminate stress levels and long-term health problems.
“I think the 8-hour work day is not as effective as one would think. To stay focused on a specific work task for 8 hours is a huge challenge,” Linus Feldt, CEO of Stockholm-based app developer Filimundus, stated.
“In order to cope, we mix in things and pauses to make the work day more endurable. At the same time, we are having it hard to manage our private life outside of work.”
Feldt revealed how his company switched to a six-hour working day last year, and that his staff have not looked back.
“We want to spend more time with our families, we want to learn new things or exercise more. I wanted to see if there could be a way to mix these things,” he added.
Workers at Filimundus are asked to stay off social media during working hours and that leads to more effort being put into work during office hours.
“My impression now is that it is easier to focus more intensely on the work that needs to be done and you have the stamina to do it and still have energy left when leaving the office.”
Feldt claims that fewer staff conflicts are another benefit to the change.
The Guardian reports that a Svartedalens retirement home in Gothenburg also switched to the shorter day as an experiment until 2016. They are trying to figure out whether hiring 14 new staff members to cover the cost of the lost hours is worth it in terms of efficiency and growing the business.
“The Svartedalens experiment is inspiring others around Sweden: at Gothenburg’s Sahlgrenska University hospital, orthopaedic surgery has moved to a 6-hour day, as have doctors and nurses in two hospital departments in Umeå to the north,”
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