Should we be working less?

For most of us, life takes a straight forward path, we're born, we go to school, some of then study further and then finally get a job and carve out a little career spanning 30 - 50 years depending on when you're ready to call it quits.

In the modern world work is your lifeline and essentially your gateway to a certain quality of life and how you will attain the means to make your way through this big blue rock called earth. We spend more time actively at work than most places. Your work colleagues become your family, your work stresses become your stresses and your work successes and failures are yours too.

The co-dependency between a company and its staff is an essential one not only for you and your immediate family but for the country, the economy and the improvement of the human race. We're all doing our bit to push our species to the next level through how we spend our time and make our mark on the world.

The goal of a company is to keep their staff motivated and as productive as possible in order to increase revenue and continue to grow. Billions of dollars are spent on seminars, workshops, psychologists, tools, software and processes in order to get the most out of staff. But what if the most powerful way to get the most out of your staff seems counter-intuitive, would you risk it as a business?

The narrative for centuries is you reap what you sow, put in the hard work, put in the hours and you'll succeed, the more you do the more you get, right it's a simple equation. But this was an equation done before the complexities of modern life was considered, the time-saving technology we have today and the benefit of more knowledge than the world has ever had before.

So what if I told you working less could be good for you and better for your company? Most of you would agree without thinking about it lol. But hear out my argument and decide for yourself

Keeping your staff in tip top condition

One meta-analysis found that long working hours increased the risk of coronary heart disease by 40% – almost as much as smoking (50%). Another found that people who worked long hours had a significantly higher risk of stroke, while people who worked more than 11 hours a day were almost 2.5 times more likely to have a major depressive episode than those who worked seven to eight.

In Japan, this has led to the disturbing trend of karoshi, or death by overwork.

If you’re wondering if this means that you might want to consider taking that long-overdue holiday, the answer may be yes. One study of businessmen in Helsinki found that over 26 years, executives and businessmen who took fewer holidays in midlife predicted both earlier deaths and worse health in old age.

Making sure your staff are not just present but fit, healthy and happy will go a long way when it comes to the level or work they push out and the consistsancy of that high level of output.

Time for inspiration

"Rest’, as some researchers point out, isn’t necessarily the best word for as it has a connatation with doing nothing but its more a time for reflection since I'm focusing on the benefit of what we’re doing when we think we’re doing nothing

The part of the brain that activates when you’re doing ‘nothing’, known as the default-mode network (DMN), plays a crucial role in memory consolidation and envisioning the future. It’s also the area of the brain that activates when people are watching others, thinking about themselves, making a moral judgment or processing other people’s emotions.

In other words, if this network were switched off, we might struggle to remember, foresee consequences, grasp social interactions, understand ourselves, act ethically or empathise with others – all of the things that make us not only functional in the workplace, but in life.

Rest and reflection helps you recognise the deeper importance of situations. It helps you make meaning out of things. When you’re not making meaning out of things, you’re just reacting and acting in the moment, and you’re subject to many kinds of cognitive and emotional maladaptive behaviours and beliefs,” says Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a neuroscientist and researcher at the University of Southern California’s Brain and Creativity Institute.

A mind free of distractions at every corner is the birthplace of creativity, the DMN lights up when you’re making associations between seemingly unrelated subjects or coming up with original ideas. It is also the place where your ‘ah-ha’ moments lurk – which means if, like Archimedes, you got your last good idea while in the bath or on a stroll, you have your biology to thank.

Perhaps most importantly of all, if we don’t take time to turn our attention inward, we lose a crucial element of happiness. To sum up, time off makes you more creative, better at problem-solving, helps you see the big picture and makes you less irritable and more understanding and empathetic. Can you see how all that could benefit a workplace?

Time management

Working overtime and trying complete tasks may seem admirable and for many companies, they pride themselves on how much work their staff are willing to put in in order to get things done but to me this papers over the cracks. As a business, you need to address issues that could hold back your companies progress or become a problem as you begin to scale. A business is a success story based on the constant elimination of issues.

Working overtime covers issues like flawed processes, under-resourced areas in terms of tools or human resources, it reduces the amount of specialisation that can be done by a staff memeber by focusing their energies on one set of tasks and reduces their effectiveness. By working less we can identify these gaps and look at processes that can ensure a postive impact on the company going forward and drive me innovative problem solving other than working harder.

The 8-hour rule

The 8 hour day is not really an 8 hour day when you consider the commute to and from the place of work it can be much longer than that, added responsibilities like getting your kids to school can make days even longer. By the time you get to work, you've exhausted valuable energy and cognitive function added to the stress of trying to be on "time" only to have your bum glued to a chair for 8 hours to please those sitting upstairs. But who says this is effective?

During the Industrial Revolution, 10-to-16-hour days were normal. Ford was the first company to experiment with an eight-hour day – and found its workers were more productive not only per hour but overall. Within two years, their profit margins doubled.

f eight-hour days are better than 10-hour ones, could even shorter working hours be even better? Perhaps. For people over 40, the research found that a 25-hour work week may be optimal for cognition, while when Sweden recently experimented with six-hour work days, it found that employees had better health and productivity.

Bums in seats

The bums in seat philosophy is one many companies still subscribe to but is slowly being abandoned by the tech and digital space. Paying someone to come into your office and sit down for 8 hours for 5 days consecutively while life happens around them and them having to manage their lives around this block out time is an archaic way of thinking.

The idea that a person can be productive for 8 hours straight is a life, we take breaks in between, we distract ourselves and our colleagues we do online shopping and check our Facebook feeds just to eat up valuable work hours, so how is that productive for both sides.

Allowing your staff to work less or rather work flexibly come in at times they are needed and complete their 6 or even 8 hours a day when they feel like it can prove to be beneficial. Perks like these don't come around oftren and staff who value such flexibility will be willing to work for less financial rewards

Having to remove yourself from the competitive salary race can free up resrouces to be more competitive and drive growth in areas of automation and push the business ahead of their competition.

Trust the timeout

Whether it’s walking away from your desk for 15 minutes or logging out of your inbox for the night, part of our struggle is control – the fear that if we relax a grip for a moment, everything will come crashing down. This was one I've personally struggled with, the feeling that nothing can be done without your input but believe me it can. The company and companies ran without you and will run without you.

Taking regular timeouts will show you your team can handle the load, they can earn your trust and you can trust them. This trust will bring stronger bonds, better communication, easier synergy and effectively better productivity.

Have your say

As the world continues to be mechanised we're fast approaching a utopian ideology where work could be a thing of the past. Do you think this is something the human condition is ready for? Could you live with less work? Could you live with no work? What would you do with your spare time? Drop me a comment id love to hear your thoughts

Let's connect