remote work has made people lazy the average hours worked per day has dropped from 8.2 hours per day
in 2019 to just 5.7 hours per day in 2023 in other words remote hybrid workers which now encompasses
a third of all Americans work less than 30 hours per week on average and it's no wonder why some
companies like Tesla and apple are adamant that people return to the office but most companies
and even the government are just rolling with it take Google for example back in 2021 they had all
this press about returning to the office but just last month they basically officially gave up on
this effort by putting 1.4 million square feet worth of office space up for a sublease but why
are companies putting up with this clearly people tend to work less from home well though people do
tend to work less total hours they actually tend to be more productive they don't have to
worry about spending an hour on commuting each way or packing lunch or buying lunch or waking
up super early or any of the other cons that come with in-person work they're able to focus
on just work itself making them more efficient and productive for the hours that they do work
in fact it's estimated that the modern hybrid economy is five percent more productive than
the traditional in-person economy as such some companies are even taking this to the next level
by experimenting with four day work weeks and even 20 hour work weeks the idea is that while people
work substantially as ours overall productivity shouldn't change all that much this brings up the
question are 30 hour and 20 hour work weeks the future of office jobs well I believe the answer
is absolutely in fact I think it's just a matter of time until a big tech company experiments with
such a schedule officially you see smaller work weeks don't just work from a logical perspective
but from a cynical perspective as well so join me as we take a look at how smaller
work weeks will not only make tech companies more productive but infinitely more profitable foreign
for starters working 8 hours a day is complete BS for most office workers most of the time they're
just waiting on someone else sitting in useless meetings or just working slowly in fact during
an eight hour work day the average worker only spends 4 hours and 12 minutes actually doing
work the rest of the day is spent on surfing the internet social media texting bathroom breaks and
socializing with co-workers now of course before you get mad in the comments let me acknowledge
that this isn't true for all jobs especially those that require manual labor if you're a mechanic or
a truck driver or a plumber this is obviously not the case not only can these people work a
full eight hours a day but they can actually be more or less productive the entire time the Sim
however cannot be said about office workers in fact Studies have found that even the most
productive office workers are only able to be productive for six hours per day in other words
even the most productive office workers waste two hours every single day so really there's no reason
for work weeks to be longer than 30 hours per week and remote work is proving exactly this when
people work from home they definitely have more distractions they might be taking care of their
children or working on a house project or cooking or whatever else but despite this remote workers
are far more productive because they tend to approach work in a completely different light when
you're forced to be at work for eight hours you can actually tend to work slower because there's
no benefit to working faster you have to be there for all eight hours even if you finish within four
or five hours so people tend to stretch out the work throughout the entire day also when people
are in person they feel less of a need to prove themselves to their managers and bosses their
presence itself goes a long way in showing that they're committed and working hard when they're
working from home however it's a whole other ball game suddenly employees are judged solely on their
output as opposed to their presence I mean let's be honest everyone knows that you can just have
teams open and move them hours every 10 minutes so no manager really takes online hours all that
seriously it's all about progress and work output as such employees also tend to focus on hitting a
certain Milestone or getting something done within a workday as opposed to working an
arbitrary number of hours it's actually kind of a motivating factor if they can just focus on
getting X item done they can just be done for the entire day so they're incentivized to work
harder and more efficiently during the hours that they do work also given that they now have more
downtime employees are in a much better state of mind they're more relaxed less stressed and just
happier in general in fact one study found that remote work increases employee Happiness by 20
which of course leads to more productivity not to mention it with remote and hybrid work companies
are able to get away with less office space less corporate food less electricity less internet
basically less of everything so it's really a win-win scenario for companies happier employees
less costs and more productivity and if you don't believe me just take it from history foreign
work weeks themselves are actually a super new invention in fact they haven't even been around
for a hundred years yet 40 hour work weeks didn't even become a lot till 1940 when the fair labor
standards Act was amended before this Factory workers would generally work 12 to 16 hours a day
for six days a week their only off day was Sunday so that they could go to church this meant that
the average employee was generally working about a hundred hours every single week of course there
were activists in the labor unions who were trying to bring this down for decades but nothing really
changed until Henry Ford stepped in in 1926 Ford would become the first major company to implement
a 40-hour work week they were essentially cutting down working hours by over half but they kept the
pay the same this was an insane development Ford was already a top paying company similar to Tech
companies today in fact Ford was already paying nearly two times the average Factory salary for
both men and women and now they were gonna cut down working hours by 60 I mean this was ludicrous
surely their productivity would plummet given how labor-intensive building cars is but this didn't
happen in fact the exact opposite happened Ford was already a desirable place to work but this
made Ford the place to be for the working class the amount of pride and loyalty that Ford saw
from their Factory workers was unprecedented and though they were only working eight hours a day
for its productivity per hour was higher than ever but despite this massive success other companies
were obviously hesitant in implementing a similar work schedule the argument was oh it may work for
Ford but it wouldn't work for us but over time They too had to make it work not because of laws
or strikes or protests or any of that but simply because of supply and demand for obvious reasons
all of the best welders and Painters and designers and inspectors walked over to Ford and the other
companies that were offering such perks the only people left at companies like GM who were on blank
reduced hours were people who literally had no other choice this meant that employee morale
and thus productivity fell lava Cliff at these companies so they really had no choice but to
follow suit now nearly a hundred years later were met with a similar set of Crossroads remote work
has made it clear that 40 hour work weeks are very much outdated and this is really not surprising
thanks to automation Tech and now ai much of the things that humans work on aren't exactly effort
dependent rather they're creativity dependent which is a limited resource just because a ux
engineer at Google works longer doesn't mean that the UI will actually turn out to be more
visually pleasing or intuitive of course this logic is most applicable for tech companies and
that's why they'd be the ones leading the way similar to Ford so while a reduction
from 40 hours down to 30 hours or even 20 hours may seem crazy at first glance it's
really not we saw a much greater decrease just a hundred years ago and that was definitely for
the better moreover there is a much more cynical reason for reducing working hours anyway foreign
even on the surface there's obviously a lot of cynical benefits to reducing working hours
companies like Google and Facebook can easily improve their brand image without sacrificing
on productivity or progress similarly they can reduce operating expenses by spending Less on
Office Buildings but all of that is just a bonus there is a much darker reason to
produce working hours that Henry Ford was well aware of by substantially increasing wages and
decreasing working hours Ford ensured that his employees not only had time to enjoy the
benefits of a car but also the money to afford a car before this only the royalty could afford
cars with substantially limited Ford's reach but by making this pivot Ford was not only able to
make cars affordable for his own employees but the entirety of the working class across America
fun fact cars were more affordable for low-level Factory workers at Ford 100 years ago than they
are for the average American today Ford was paying a minimum wage of five dollars per day
which meant that it would take a Ford employee at most 11 weeks to afford a 260 Model T today
the median income in the US is forty four thousand dollars but to even a four day base level Toyota
Corolla it would take 26 weeks of income no wonder cars became so popular but anyway tech companies
today are in the perfect position to do the exact same thing but with tech these companies are very
much the Ford of the 21st century they have the most power control and influence so you can bet
that if they reduce working hours other companies will be forced to follow along not just within the
us but internationally sure work hours May not drop all the way to 20 hours across the world
for countries that tend to work more hours may drop from 100 to 80 or 80 to 70. given that most
tech companies operate off of free product they don't even need people to have more money they
just need people to have more time in an Ideal World a 20-hour work week would mean that people
spend more time with family and friends and on trips and relaxation and all of that but you can
bet that if a 20-hour work week were to actually be implemented most people would just spend more
time on their phones than social media and guess who owns these platforms it's of course the tech
companies right now the average person only spends 2 hours and 31 minutes per day on social media but
with the 20-hour work weeks this could easily go up to four or five hours per day which would
essentially double the income of these platforms so it really doesn't even matter if shorter work
weeks marginally affect the productivity of these companies they'd essentially be trading
10 or 20 less productivity from their 100 or 200 000 employees in return for hours of time
from billions of people and the best part is that they'll look like they're good guys who
are on the employee side and it's really a 200 IQ move as Henry Ford declared every man needs
more than one day a week for rest and Recreation I mean to buy Model T cars similarly tech companies
can declare every person needs more than 16 hours a day for rest and record I mean to use
our platforms as much as possible as this is the real reason that companies will push for
shorter and shorter work weeks and embrace remote work simply it makes more business
sense something else that's counter-intuitively more profitable is giving up profitability check
out this video to learn more but until then I'm Hari I'll see you guys on the next one