My parents both commit an average of 13 work hours a day, clocking a total of 65 hours a week. They leave the home at 8am everyday and are only back for dinner at 9pm. In the working industry today, this is the norm and in fact is expected of employees in majority of companies. The question however remains, does more working hours equate to higher profit?
Let us start by examining the practices of the executives of major companies. It is normal for them to start work very early and retire only late into the night. These people sacrifice their family life for their company and built the company from scratch. When employees of these executives see that the company heads commit this many hours at work, they get the impression that this is expected of them as well and eventually every single one of the company’s staff will be committing long hours daily. While it may seem that the productivity of the firm will increase together with the hours put in by the employee, the opposite occurs. This can be illustrated with a scenario from Arlie Hochschild’s book, The Time Bind. When the demand for a product falls, companies usually fire several employees and make the rest work harder than they did before. A major company in the United States of America, ESI faced such a situation. They decided to put a vote to the employees and decide upon laying off some or decreasing the work hours for everyone. The employees decided on fewer working hours and a lower salary for the entire staff. What was surprising however was that the company saw the productivity level remain the same. A greater surprise was that nobody wanted to go back to working a greater number of hours after the economy went back up. The above reinforces the point that longer hours not necessarily mean more work done, and that in fact shorter hours usually brings higher productivity.
When a machine is turned on 24 hours a day, it eventually wears down and can no longer be used. Imagine that even machines cannot take the work overload how can human beings. With long term work hours, individuals will eventually succumb to stress, disease and depression. Business time will decrease then and defeat the entire purpose of demanding ‘seat time’. It cannot be denied that some people work better with a greater time allowance but those who function better when ‘seat time’ is not demanded should be allowed to do as they wish as long as the job is done at the end of the day. Those who find that they are not able to complete the work that they have been assigned to should not commit longer hours and instead must find a better method of structuring their time. When a child has a major examination the following day, his parents will ask him to turn in earlier that night so that he will be able to concentrate the following day. Working adults should practise as they preach as well and then, he might realise that he can make better decisions with a clearer mind.
Some companies might be resistant to the idea of change and not welcome the idea of not measuring ‘seat time’. These companies should realise that in environments where stress is high, there will be high employee turnover rate. The costs of searching and retraining new employees then will incur high losses for the company then. Laziness is not about doing nothing but about doing what you like to do. When employees are enjoying their work, high profits will follow.
