Reasons Why Working Less Hours Can Increase Productivity of Employees
The need of productivity from the employees is
increasing gradually with the growth in the competition among various
businesses. Boosting the productivity of employees requires the businesses to
look after the benefits and happiness of the employees. This is why most
organization turn towards rewards and incentives to make the employees feel
happy about themselves which in turn can increase their productivity.
However, all these incentives and rewards only
increase the productivity of the employees for a short period and after that,
everything gets back to normal. This is where one of the most debated topics of reducing working hours to increase
the productivity comes in the mind of people.
While most of the organizations have 40-42
hours a week as the average working time, it’s often observed that employees
generally tend to work more than that. A study by the International Labor
Organization has found out that more than 22% of the employees surveyed through
time sheet free software work more than the average work time.
These figures suggest that employees get very
less time to spend on themselves or on their families, which makes them less
productive. There are also studies that suggest the longer a human work the
less the productive it gets. This is why many progressive and developed
countries, like Sweden and Germany, have
moved on from the 40-48 hours a week working model to 32-36 hours a week model
that are tracked through various time sheets free software.
The results gained after shortening the working
hours have provided positive results to support the claim of the researchers.
Here are some of the reasons why shortening the work hours actually helps
increase the productivity of the employees:
Improved well-being
Giving your employees more time to spend as
they wish helps in reduction of their stress levels and improves their overall
physical and mental well-being. This makes sure that employees make time for
all the things that are important for them, which keeps them happy and
satisfied. Working less would also mean that people would move away from the
current trend of living to work, work to earn and earn to consume.
More time to spend
with friends and family
Spending fewer
hours in the office means, your employees will be able to spend more time with
the people they care for. This helps them be happy most of the time that in
turn increases the productivity of the employees. Strong and valuable
relationships with friends and family also let
people build a stronger society, which
has greater productivity.
Better employees
The people who tend to work 40 hours or more in
a week tend to gradually lose their productivity with the increase in working
hours, while the people working less than 36 hours tend to be amore productive hour for hour. This happens
because the employees working for fewer
hours a week don’t need to push themselves to get through the time. The people
working fewer hours are also very less
prone to diseases and take much lesser holidays than
their counterparts.