Working hours

Instead of just blogging about humanitarian concerns I have opted to put them onto a website:
http://freedomandresponsibility.weebly.com/
...and I also have a site devoted to more light-hearted stuff focused on lists, including recommendations on music and sporting predictions:
http://tws27stuff.weebly.com/

My latest humanitarian piece that I haven't yet explored in the blog is on working hours and productivity.
http://freedomandresponsibility.weebly.com/working-hours.html

I think a lot of our problems with long working hours stem from a mentality of "doing" rather than "producing" (since there is always work that can be done, but not all work is productive) and a belief that dedication to a cause is measured by how much we self-sacrifice for it, rather than by how strongly we contribute to the cause.  Therefore, people can be seen as dedicated for "working" for 60 hours per week, but only doing 30 hours' worth of productive work, which is bad for both employee (having to work excessive hours) and employer (not getting anywhere near as much productive work as expected given the hour count).

I am an advocate of flexibility, but believe that it should work in both directions- people should be expected to work longer at times when the workload is heavier than average, but also be permitted to take that time off at times when the workload is below-average.  I hear too many reports of employees being expected to work 45+ hours per week on a frequent basis due to under-staffing, and of them being forbidden from working less than the standard 37 even when they have built up a lot of "flexi-time" and having a shortage of productive work.  Employers may need to be regulated by higher authorities in order to address this problem.  Of course, workers can abuse the system too, e.g. by "working" 35-40 hours per week but only actually getting 25-30 hours' of productive work done, thus effectively wasting 10 hours' worth of their employers' money.  There are ways that employers can expose these people, though, such as through performance-related pay.

The idea of my proposals is to reduce the inefficiency in the system so that people are able to be productive without having to work longer hours than are necessary to achieve X amount of productivity.  Therefore we may be able to give people a fair amount of time for leisure, social activities, child-rearing etc., and still get enough work in to be able to sustain a thriving economy.