This type of research is guaranteed to obtain (and report) the results they want to see ahead of time. Can you imagine a title "four-day week trial reports reduced productivity" ?
Are you just imagining that this can happen period? Or you have a more specific scenario in mind? Who would run the trial? Why do they run the trial? Are they completely unbiased in their expectations before running the trial? For example, if the organization running the trial hosts their website at www.4dayweek.com. Still unbiased? Really?
Absolutely. And that's where the problem is: both parties are biased. No research on this topic, or the topic of Universal Basic Income, or gender-based equal pay, or immigration's impact on economy, or lots of other contentious topics, is unbiased. Whenever you read this type of research, you need to take it with a huge grain of salt.
The title claims that a four-day week trail shows that working less increases productivity.
The article provides two data points for this.
1) The author's personal research, in which they say they measured a 10% increase in productivity, but about which they explicitly fully admit that in the end it doesn't make up for the loss of productivity from working 20% less. They actually write in the article that end productivity would be less.
2) They link to a study of a single Japanese company that was overworking their workers by 20-40 hours of overtime each month, which was reduced to ~20 hours of overtime after the 08 recession. They took the income the employees earned, divided it by how many hours they worked, and somehow determined that the employees were "7.6%" more productive when they had to work less overtime. This study has nothing to do with a four-day work week, it's for a single company, and for a company that was already working their employees well past a normal 40 hour work week.
That's it. That's the proof they provide, as they make the claim that four-day work weeks increase productivity. One data point that the author admits doesn't say that, and one data point that has nothing to do with a four-day work week and makes little sense.
6 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 25.3 ms ] thread...yes. I don't have any trouble imagining that.
Are you just imagining that this can happen period? Or you have a more specific scenario in mind? Who would run the trial? Why do they run the trial? Are they completely unbiased in their expectations before running the trial? For example, if the organization running the trial hosts their website at www.4dayweek.com. Still unbiased? Really?
The article provides two data points for this.
1) The author's personal research, in which they say they measured a 10% increase in productivity, but about which they explicitly fully admit that in the end it doesn't make up for the loss of productivity from working 20% less. They actually write in the article that end productivity would be less.
2) They link to a study of a single Japanese company that was overworking their workers by 20-40 hours of overtime each month, which was reduced to ~20 hours of overtime after the 08 recession. They took the income the employees earned, divided it by how many hours they worked, and somehow determined that the employees were "7.6%" more productive when they had to work less overtime. This study has nothing to do with a four-day work week, it's for a single company, and for a company that was already working their employees well past a normal 40 hour work week.
That's it. That's the proof they provide, as they make the claim that four-day work weeks increase productivity. One data point that the author admits doesn't say that, and one data point that has nothing to do with a four-day work week and makes little sense.