We have 40 hour weeks in the UK, but in France it quickly became 39, and then the infamous 35 hour week that France implemented. You could work 39 hours a week then after 2 weeks get an RTT. This was supposed to help boost employment, but it only hindered productivity. It was a poorly conceived plan, and though we all agree in theory that it’s great to work less and produce more, in reality it’s a lot more complex. It depends on the industry. The small web agency cannot just hire new talent to offset an expert’s absence a few hours a week.
Could we rather move to 32 hour weeks. For same pay? Can we achieve our productivity goals? What about 16 hour weeks? How can we structure properly and do people only want to work half-time.
I believe there will come a time when we will work less hours… but with highly specialised tasks.
The question is, what will we do the rest of the time?