[lbo-talk] People today just don't have the work ethic they used to!

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 7:28 AM, andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Now of course we are all thoroughly broken, so the question is, why
> does this efficiency-wrecking (as well as soul-destroying) practice
> continue? It's not as if the psychological results are not
> known. Maybe they are not believed, probably managers don't believe
> them, but you'd think that just a few companies that were sensible
> about this would have a serious competitive advantage. And this
> isn't rocket science; you'd think it was totally obvious that
> rested, happy workers would do more and better than tired, bitter
> workers who need constant monitoring. Nonetheless, the prevailing
> managerial philosophy throughout the capitalist world is "the
> whippings will continue until morale improves."

These companies exist.

   "So far our four-day work week experiment is working. We haven't

    found ourselves collectively wishing we had an extra work day a

    week. We haven't found ourselves gasping for extra hours. Instead

    I feel like we've been more focused and working better together.

    [...]

   "Could we have gotten more good work done if we worked those extra

    five Fridays? I seriously doubt it. Would we have been happier

    working five extra days over the last 30? I seriously doubt it. Is

    a four-day work week better for morale and productivity than a

    typical five-day work week? I seriously believe it."

    http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/966-urgency-is-poisonous

If you're interested in other experiments:
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/893-workplace-experiments

Tayssir