6小时工作制究竟对谁有利？

BBC阿丽亚娜·奇拉塞罗(Ariana Chirasello)(2023年10月7日)

(图片来源：Thinkstock)

你是否梦想每天都少工作几个小时？《卫报》在一篇报道中详细阐述了一项针对6小时工作制展开的试验，结果表明，缩短工作时间不仅对你有好处，对你所在的企业或许也很有利。

瑞典疗养院Svartedalens一直在尝试缩短工作时间，但并没有减少员工的薪水。他们的假设是：世界各地的人都在不断延长工作时间，但这却未必能确保更好的用户体验，也未必能够确保员工满意度和效率得到提升。

在尝试了6个月的6小时工作日(而非常规的8小时工作日)后，该疗养院的护士感觉压力降低了不少，但精力却更加充沛。《卫报》称，这反而提高了他们的护理质量。虽然研究人员表示，目前就对最终结果下判断还为时尚早，但这项尝试的确表明，这家疗养院的工作效率提升了，员工离职率也下降了。但这种方式的确对财务状况产生了一些不利影响。为了满足人手需求，这家疗养院不得不招募了14名新员工。

(Credit: Alamy)

据《卫报》报道，包括丰田哥德堡服务中心、互联网创业公司Brath和应用开发商Filimundus在内的其他企业，也都缩短了工作时间，而且沿用至今。员工表示，他们的感觉更好了，而且可以更好地平衡工作与家庭之间的关系。这种变化还提升了工作效率，企业发现更容易招到顶尖人才。丰田哥德堡服务中心总经理马汀·班克(Martin Banck)对《卫报》表示，自从缩短工作时间以来，该公司的利润已经增长了25%。

可是，缩短工作时间难道不是要把相同的工作量压缩到更少的时间内完成吗？这样难道不会增加压力吗？韩国研究人员发现，将每周工作时间从44小时缩短到40小时，并承诺周六放假，只会增加员工的工作压力，不会增强幸福感。新泽西职场战略师卡利·威廉姆斯·尤斯特(Cali Williams Yost)认为，成功实施这种方法的关键是要明白，缩短工作时间并不适用于所有人或所有公司——必须针对具体的职位和工作需求对这种模式进行调整。

当然，如果你无法让自己的老板相信，缩短工作时间适合所有人，你还可以参考BBC Capital的另外一篇 文章，有5个人在那篇文章里介绍了如何通过其他有创意的方式找回自己的时间。

（责编：友义）

The great six-hour workday experiment

By Ariana Chirasello,7 October 2024

Dreaming of a shorter workday? It might be good for you, and, according to a story published in The Guardian detailing an experiment with a six-hour workday, cutting back may be good for your company, too.

Swedish nursing home Svartedalens has been trialling shorter days, without reducing salaries. The premise: people everywhere are working even longer hours, but that’s not necessarily a guarantee of happier customers or satisfied, productive employees.

After six months of the six-hour day (versus the usual eight hours), the nurses at the home felt less stressed and more energised. That in turn increased their quality of care, according to The Guardian. While researchers said it was too early to fully quantify the results, signs show that productivity improved and staff turnover decreased. There was one financial drawback. Fourteen new employees had to be hired to accommodate the extra shifts.  

Other companies — Toyota service centres in Gothenburg, internet start-up Brath and app developer Filimundus — cut hours and haven’t looked back since, The Guardian reported. Staff said they felt better and were now able to better balance work with family. The change also increased efficiency and productivity, and the companies found it easier to recruit top-tier staff. Martin Banck, managing director at Toyota service centres in Gothenburg, told the Guardian that profits have grown by 25% since the shift to the shortened workday.  

But don’t shorter workdays mean cramming the same amount of work into fewer hours and even more stress?  Researchers in South Korea found that reducing work weeks from 44 hours to 40 hours, and promising Saturdays off, only increased workload strain instead of fostering happiness. The key to making a shorter workday successful is to understand that the change in hours might not be best for everyone or every company — such options need to be altered to meet the specific job and workplace needs, according to Cali Williams Yost, a workplace strategist based in New Jersey.  

Of course, if you can’t convince your boss that shorter days are better for everyone, here are five people BBC Capital found who figured out how to take back their time in other, creative ways.