Inputs – Labour – Hours

The UK labour force works comparatively long hours on average compared to most other nations

Some argue that people in the UK should work even more hours per year on average – others call this a retrograde step, saying the longer term aim should be to reduce working hours per person

Overall, the trend is for less hours of work, at least in an office, as the brainwork era develops – quality of thinking and results, not time inputs whilst under a manager’s thumb, are taking priority

A breakdown of G7 working hours shows:

• USA – work very long hours and take few holidays

• UK – also work long hours but enjoy long holidays

• France – work fewer hours and take very long holidays – yet their productivity levels (GDP per hour or per worker) are significantly better than the UK’s

This serves to show that hours input is no longer the solution, at least for brainwork – being ‘seen’ late in the office may be thought to help job security but it does little for better quality of work – better outcomes – it’s the law of diminishing returns again

Indeed, over all sectors, working more than 50 hours a week has been correlated in a raft of studies with less sleep, less physical activity, higher job dissatisfaction and, ultimately, worse performance – the longer people work, the less the return from each additional hour and the more alienated and disengaged they become

Ernst & Young, a consultancy, even showed that the longer the vacation their employees took, the better they performed (up to a point, one presumes) – yet more than half of all Americans fail to take all their vacation days – 30% use less than half