Search results for: “productivity”

Free Time – A Forgotten Dream
Yesterday some of my most fundamental assumptions about work and life were challenged.

I had the pleasure of skyping with Benjamin Hunnicutt, professor at the University of Iowa and author of a new book called “Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream.”

Hunnicutt showed me that about 100 years ago, most people fully expected work to play an increasingly diminished role in our lives. Work hours had been steadily dropping (mostly through the efforts of organized labor) and even John Maynard Keynes predicted that we’d end up with 2,5-hour work days.

This would create a huge amount of free time in workers’ lives which could be spent in communities, education, sports and leisure. As we all know, that is not exactly what ended up happening in most of the world, especially the US.

Instead, working hours in America have increased and increased more. Where the ideal used to be having a job that allowed you to make enough money to enjoy the rest of your life, work itself became the ideal and full employment for everyone became a societal goal.

Also, the ideal has become not just having a full-time job, but having a fulfilling job. One where you can realize your full potential and build a positive identity. However, many people work in workplaces where this is not currently possible. They would be able to seek fulfilment in their leisure time.

We also talked about good and bad free time. Good free time connects you to other people, let’s you do something meaningful and gives you a positive identity. Think amateur theatre, volunteer work, community service, sports and similar. Hunnicutt and has wife have recently taken up ballroom dancing.

Bad free time is basically TV. A passive activity that results in no meaningful improvement or enjoyment.

My work, of course, is to help create happier workplaces. I honestly believe that most jobs can be enjoyable and fulfilling and I believe that this is an advantage to both workers and workplaces.

But Hunnicutt helped me see that our current notions of what ideally constitutes employment are just that – current notions. We might easily be able to find better ways to divide our time between work and leisure.

Like IT company 37signals who introduced a 4-day work week, or like Kellogg’s who until the 1980s had 6-hour work days.

Denmark (my country) is getting this somewhat right. Danish workers have both shorter working days, more annual vacation time (typically 5-6 weeks) and long maternity/paternity leaves than almost any other OECD country. And (not coincidentally in my opinion) Danish workers are some of the most productive and Denmark is routinely ranked as the happiest nation in the world.

I would personally like to see people enjoy both their work time and their free time but right now the needle is pointing towards more and more work time. I think this is a mistake for both workplaces and workers.

Ask someone to describe their perfect day and few people would say “Well, I’d go work for 9 or 10 hours than come home too tired to play with my kids.”

Your take

What do you think? How many hours do you work in a typical week? How many hours would you like to work? How many hours would your boss like you to work? How many hours would your children like you to work?

Related posts
September 12, 2013
Memo from one boss: Don’t work too much!

I found an excellent blog post about Wisetech Global, an Australian IT company with a somewhat… different attitude to overwork:

If employees work more than 40 hours a week regularly, they have to talk to their manager to redress the situation.
…
WiseTech Global chief executive Richard White said the company’s approach was consistent with its core values, which state that although staff should strive for the best outcomes, “we do not ask people to impale themselves on their work commitments”.
…
“Its not the amount of work, it’s the quality of the work,” he said.

There you go. This is what every single workplace in the world should do.

Hat tip to Luciano Moretti for telling me about this awesome company.

And we can all contribute to a better and healthier attitude to working hours. Check out this comment from Dee:

I work in retail, and it’s true, some enjoy spending all their time at work, and that’s fine. If you want to spend 60 hours at work, that’s your prerogative. What I don’t like is the judgmental attitudes surrounding work hours– the unsaid expectation that if you don’t work 9-9, you’re a failure, or letting your team down.

No, working 12 hours, five days in a row makes me miserable AND a failure– a failure at my job. I work to live, I don’t live to work, as the old saying goes and, when I first started and was eager to fit in, I bent over backwards keeping a similar schedule. I felt ashamed that my ‘meager’ 12 hour day contribution wasn’t enough, and I felt in ‘awe’ of the woman that habitually came in at 6am and leaving at 9pm. Then one day, about a year into the job, I remember wondering why I had gotten the flu yet AGAIN, (the fourth time in two months!) when it hit me. I was working way too much and almost killing myself. Life is going to get me in the end. I don’t need my job to speed up that process.

Now I work less, work better, and win more accolades, get more sales, and get sick less, all because I don’t conform to the cult of overwork. I’m in the minority, but I’m happy. And that lady? Well, she still works her heart out, and complains the whole way.

YES – shorter working hours can make you enjoy work more, enjoy life more AND help you do better work.

What’s the attitude to overwork at your workplace? Are people who constantly work overtime celebrated as heroes or is there a real effort to keep working hours down?

Related posts
Bring back the 40-hour work week
Don’t let The Cult of Overwork ruin your work life.
The top 5 new rules of productivity.

November 9, 2012

New article says happiness at work is impossible. I don’t buy it. Surprise :)

An article called The Dangers of Viewing Work as Play by Zeesham Aleem makes some great points about shifting working conditions and the need for organized labor, but then goes on to argue that being happy at work is basically impossible.

I found the article because I’m mentioned in it:

Google is known for promising outstanding quality of life to many of its employees, from its cafeterias to its napping pods.

Alexander Kjerulf, a consultant who calls himself The Chief Happiness Officer, wrote a book called Happy Hour is 9 to 5. Ideally, the knowledge worker is able to make play out of work.

Sounds great, right? But no, that’s not how things are according to Aleem:

But reconceptualizing work as fulfilling doesn’t alter its ultimate infringement on leisure.

Enjoyable work at a desk still takes a toll on the body and the mind. The non-physical nature of labor masks the fact that on average, knowledge workers peak in productivity after their sixth hour of work.

But most importantly, no matter how much you love your job, it’s time that generally isn’t under one’s control — time that could be spent on health, family, friends, community and doing things that can alter the conditions of society.

Got that? No matter how you dress it up, at the end of the day work is hard, unpleasant, out of your control, bad for you and takes time away from all the other things you would rather be doing.

This is presented as just the way things are and even worse as the way they should be with Benjamin Franklin as the role model:

Franklin represented an attitude toward work that coupled industry with frugality, the signature sign of grace according to Calvinist doctrine. Hard work was an end in itself…

This attitude towards work is all-pervasive in the Western world and has been for thousands of years. Just yesterday I mentioned it as a prime example of some of our most pernicious work-related cognitive illusions. But it’s still wrong for two reasons.

First, it’s factually wrong.There are and always have been plenty of people who love what they do, who come home from work fulfilled and energized and for whom work is a beneficial influence in their lives.

Secondly, this attitude is morally wrong because it’s hurting people. This attitude towards work is one of the main reasons why so many people accept stressful jobs, jerk bosses and bad working conditions.

Let me say this very clearly: If your work brings you down, drains your energy and makes you stressed and frustrated then something is wrong. This is not something that should be accepted or (even worse) idolized and sought out.

Work can make you happy and it should make you happy. Why anyone would argue otherwise is beyond me.

Your take

What do you think? Is work ultimately a draing on your time and resources? Or can it actually be a net-positive influence in your life? Please write a comment, I’d love to hear your take.

November 1, 2012

Much of what you know about business is wrong. You will continue to believe it even now that you know it’s wrong.

“Cognitive illusions can be more stubborn than visual illusions”
– Daniel Kahneman (Source)

This quote explains why many workplaces are still unhappy even though we all should know by now, that happy workplaces are not only more fun but also make more money.

In the image above, every horizontal line is perfectly straight. Don’t believe me? Hold up a ruler to your screen and check.

OK, now you know the horizontal lines are straight. What does your mind see? Bendy lines.

And in the same way, managers and employees alike are clinging to cognitive illusions like:

Work is unpleasant but that’s normal and there are no happy jobs.
The more hours we work, the better.
If you’re enjoying yourself, you’re not getting enough done.
Managers can never be friends with their employees.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world and everyone is just out to screw everyone else over.

The list goes on… you can add your own in the comments.

Kahneman also notes how hard it is to change your beliefs, even when you know better:

When my colleagues and I learned that our leadership assessment tests had low validity, we accepted that fact intellectually, but it had no impact on either our feelings or our subsequent actions.

So how do we overcome our cognitive biases in the workplace (and in general)? It can be done, but it takes work. Here are 5 steps that help.

1: Be aware of your biases
This is where it all starts. We all have cognitive biases (Wikipedia has an exhaustive list) but as long as we are not aware of them, we are slaves to them. The first step to overcome a cognitive bias is to know that you have it. And you do :o)

2: Follow the facts
What conclusions do the facts actually support? For instance, if you look at productivity studies, permanent overwork leads to lower productivity, not higher. This is what the research shows. This is fact.

3: Be willing to acknowledge that you have been wrong
If you believe A but the facts support B then change your beliefs. Everything else is stupid.

4: Don’t be afraid to stand out
But this means going against the flow, since everyone else still believes A. Tough! Truth is not decided by majority rule, and it’s absolutely possible for 90% of any group to be dead wrong.

5: Use stories
Possibly the best tool for changing peoples’ minds is stories because stories speak to our emotions not just our intellect.

The upshot

Much of what you know about business is wrong. If you don’t do something about it, you will continue to believe it even now that you know it’s wrong. This is bad.

Your take

In your opinion, what are some of the most stubborn and pernicious beliefs in the business world? What beliefs have you changed personally? What helper you change? Please write a comment, I’d love to hear your take.

October 31, 2012

My top 10 most popular articles ever

I started this blog on October 14 2002, almost exactly 10 years ago, and it may have been one of my smartest decisions ever. Not only has blogging taught me to enjoy writing (and led to me writing 3 books) but it’s also been a great way to spread the message of happiness at work to the world.

Since 2002 the blog has had more than 10,000,000 page views from about 7,000,000 unique visitors. My most popular blog post alone, has over 1,000,000 page views. Not bad :o)

It’s been quite a ride and it’s still going strong, but here’s a short stroll down memory lane with my top 10 most popular articles from the last 10 years.

10: Top 5 reasons why “The Customer is Always Right” is wrong
The phrase “The customer is always right” was originally coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge’s department store in London in 1909. Ironically it often leads to unhappy employees and bad customer service. Here are the top five reasons why “The customer is always right” is wrong.

9: Ten seeeeeeriously cool workplaces
Physical space matters. It’s easier to be productive, creative and happy at work in a colourful, organic, playful environment than in a grey, linear, boring one. Take a tour of 10 really cool, beautiful workplaces.

8: How NOT to lead geeks
The main reason IT people are unhappy at work is bad relations with management, often because geeks and managers have fundamentally different personalities, professional backgrounds and ambitions. See the top 10 mistakes IT managers make.

7: Secret salaries are a baaaaaad idea
It’s a golden rule in most businesses that salaries must be kept secret. Except for a few heretics, it is almost universally accepted that mayhem would ensue in the workplace if people knew what their co-workers, their managers or – gasp – the CEO was making. Making salaries open inside a company instead seems like a wild idea sure, but it makes a lot of sense and brings advantages for both the workplace and for its people.

6: Top five business maxims that need to go
Much well-known business advice is sadly obsolete but can still be found in articles, business books and, not least, in daily use in the workplace. The worst of these old maxims are not only wrong, they’re bad for people and bad for business. Here’s my pick of the top 5 business maxims in serious need of an update – with a replacement for each.

5: Rewards don’t motivate. No, really, they don’t.
Many people don’t feel motivated at work, and there’s a very simple explanation for this: The motivational techniques used by most managers don’t work.

4: Top ten bad excuses for staying in a job you hate
If you’re unhappy at work, I’m sure that the thought “Man, I really should quit!” crosses your mind occasionally. So why don’t you? Here are 10 of the most common bad excuses for staying in a crappy job.

3: 12 ways to pimp your office
I’m not going to claim that a fancy desk or a weird chair is going to magically improve your creativity and productivity – but I am damn sure, that all that sameness and eternal corporate grayness, does nothing good for your ability to come up with great new ideas. Here are some ways to spruce up a workplace that may actually inject some color and fun into your work environment.

2: Top ten signs you’re unhappy at work
How do you know that you’re unhappy at work? In my work, I talk to a lot of people who are not happy with their jobs. Here are the top ten symptoms of unhappiness at work that I’ve observed. How many apply to you?

1: Don’t let The Cult of Overwork ruin your life
I know it’s normal to view people working constant overtime as heroes of the organization. But still I think they would be more efficient and enjoy life more if they cut down their time at work. They may find that they become more open, less stressed, have more fun AND are better role models for their employees. This cult of overwork has got to stop.

You can find more popular posts from the blog here.

October 22, 2012

Working time through the ages

Wikipedia delivers again, this time with a great overview of working time – from the stone age to today.

A few nuggets from the article:

…early hunter-gatherer societies enjoyed more leisure time than is permitted by capitalist and agrarian societies;^[5]^[6] For instance, one camp of !Kung Bushmen was estimated to work two-and-a-half days per week, at around 6 hours a day.^[7] Aggregated comparisons show that on average the working day was less than five hours.^[5]
…
The automobile manufacturer, Henry Ford, was an ardent proponent of shorter work hours, which he introduced unilaterally in his own factories.
…
Recent studies[9][10] supporting a four-day week have shown that reduced work hours not only increase consumption and invigorate the economy
…
Because of the pressure of working, time is increasingly viewed as a commodity.[26] This trend, as well as the amount of working time being found to affect gender roles, has been notably researched by Sociology professor Dr. Stephen C. Smith.[27] In 2006, the average man employed full-time worked 8.4 hours per work day, and the average woman employed full-time worked 7.7 hours per work day.[28]

Good stuff. There’s loads more – go read the whole thing.

April 30, 2012

The brain likes surprises

According to research, we become a happier when good things happen to us (duh!) but the effect is even bigger when good things happen to us unexpectedly:

Emory University and Baylor College of Medicine researchers used Magnetic Resonance Imaging brain scans to measure changes in human brain activity in response to a sequence of pleasurable stimuli.

They used a computer-controlled device to squirt fruit juice or water into the mouths of 25 research participants. The patterns of the squirting were either predictable or unpredictable.

The researchers found that the MRI scans showed a brain area called the nucleus accumbens to be much more active when the subjects received unpredictable patterns of juice and water.

So:

Something nice happens that you expect = good
Something nice happens unexpectedly = even better

This is interesting in the context of happiness at work because many of the things companies do to make their employees happier are utterly predictable: Summer parties, Christmas parties, Bonuses, team events, and so on happen on an almost completely fixed schedule, which serves to diminish their effectiveness.

This is why we advocate also doing random acts of workplace kindness. According to this research, a small well-meant surprising gesture towards an employee or a team may make them much happier.

So what could you do, to surprise a co-worker today? Here are some examples from previous blog posts:

Your take

Has anyone ever done something that surprised and delighted you at work? Or have you done something like that to you co-workers?

April 23, 2012

Bring back the 40-hour work week

Companies are more productive when they stick to a 40-hour week. This article explains why.

From the article:

Unions started fighting for the short week in both the UK and US in the early 19th century. By the latter part of the century, it was becoming the norm in an increasing number of industries. And a weird thing happened: over and over — across many business sectors in many countries — business owners discovered that when they gave into the union and cut the hours, their businesses became significantly more productive and profitable.

Even Henry Ford, who was definitely some kind of socialist, profited from this knowledge:

By 1914, emboldened by a dozen years of in-house research, Henry Ford famously took the radical step of doubling his workers’ pay, and cut shifts in Ford plants from nine hours to eight. The National Association of Manufacturers criticized him bitterly for this — though many of his competitors climbed on board in the next few years when they saw how Ford’s business boomed as a result. In 1937, the 40-hour week was enshrined nationwide as part of the New Deal. By that point, there were a solid five decades of industrial research that proved, beyond a doubt, that if you wanted to keep your workers bright, healthy, productive, safe, and efficient over a sustained stretch of time, you kept them to no more than 40 hours a week and eight hours a day.

Basically, it seems that this was accepted knowledge for decades – until some time around the 80s when constant overwork became seen as a sign of passion and a desirable tendency in employees.

Go read the whole thing – it is excellent.

Your take

What about your workplace? Are people allowed to work 40 hour weeks or is overtime more or less mandatory? What is your optimal number of working hours per week? Please write a comment, I’d love to know your take.

March 19, 2012

It Pays to be NICE to Your Employees

This is a guest post by my good buddies Linda and Robin over at THE POWER OF NICE.

Managers, when was the last time you asked yourself, “Am I doing enough to show my employees how much I appreciate them?”

If you’re unsure, chances are your office could probably benefit from a little gratitude. A November 2009 Careerbuilder.com survey revealed that 40 percent of employees have difficulty staying motivated at work, while 23 percent describe their office morale as “low.” What was the reason? As you might have suspected, it was a simple one. They felt unappreciated by their employers.

Contrary to what you might think, however, it doesn’t take a whopping pay raise or a slew of promotions to make employees feel valued. Studies have shown repeatedly that it’s the small, interpersonal gestures that have the biggest payoff.

A 2010 McKinsey study found that the best workplace motivators appeal directly to the emotions, with 67 percent listing praise or recognition from an immediate manager as “effective” or “extremely effective.” What’s more, respondents found all emotionally based motivators to be more effective than financial ones.

While we certainly can’t argue with the value of congratulating an employee on a job well done, we have another novel trick that we’ve found rather effective: chocolate. Yes, when you “sweeten the deal” quite literally, you’ll find that your employees will actually experience a bit of an emotional boost. It’s not just because of the sweet taste, either. Chocolate contains over 300 different chemicals, including caffeine, theobromine, and phenylethylamine, which stimulate the neurotransmitters in the brain linked to concentration and mood. In other words, a few handfuls of M&M’s could have employees feeling better and working smarter. (Quite a big accomplishment for a little chocolate candy!)

No matter what your approach, demonstrating your gratitude toward your employees and recognizing their accomplishments regularly is a SMALL but highly effective way to transform your office culture and rev up productivity—and as a result, kick your business into high gear.

And that’s something everyone can appreciate.

Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval are the co-authors of the bestselling books, THE POWER OF NICE: How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness and THE POWER OF SMALL: Why Little Things Make All the Difference. To connect with them, follow them on Twitter, “like” them on Facebook, or check out their blog.

March 7, 2011

Faking happiness is bad for you

A lot of self-help advice advocates faking happiness, in order to become happy. If you’re in a bad mood, you should pretend to be happy, and that will make you happier for real. You should force a smile, force yourself to focus on the positive, chat with others in a friendly way or similar.

It’s often called “fake it till you make it”.

I honestly don’t believe that’s how it works, and now there’s some evidence to support this view:

…scientists tracked a group of bus drivers for two weeks, focusing on them because their jobs require frequent, and generally courteous, interactions with many people.

The scientists examined what happened when the drivers engaged in fake smiling, known as “surface acting”…

After following the drivers closely, the researchers found that on days when the smiles were forced, the subjects’ moods deteriorated and they tended to withdraw from work. Trying to suppress negative thoughts, it turns out, may have made those thoughts even more persistent.

So what does work? Finding actual (you might say real) reasons to be happy:

…on days when the subjects tried to display smiles through deeper efforts — by actually cultivating pleasant thoughts and memories — their overall moods improved and their productivity increased.

So if you’re having a crappy day at work don’t just fake happiness – find reasons to be happy. And if that doesn’t work, go ahead and have a crappy day. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that and we all do it regularly.

Now, if you have a crappy month, on the other hand…

February 24, 2011

Search results for: “productivity”

Free Time – A Forgotten Dream

Your take

Related posts

Memo from one boss: Don’t work too much!

Related posts

New article says happiness at work is impossible. I don’t buy it. Surprise :)

Your take

Related posts

Much of what you know about business is wrong. You will continue to believe it even now that you know it’s wrong.

The upshot

Your take

Related posts

My top 10 most popular articles ever

Working time through the ages

Related posts

The brain likes surprises

Your take

Bring back the 40-hour work week

Your take

Related posts

It Pays to be NICE to Your Employees

Related posts

Faking happiness is bad for you

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