A six-hour workday

News arrives from Gothenburg about an experiment with a group of municipal workers. A group of employees will work a 6-hour work day (with full pay) to see if they are more productive than another group working a traditional full day.

Part of this is the left-wing local government flexing its muscles in favor or worker's rights. But there is science behind it, too. There is a correlation between shorter working hours and greater productivity. German workers, for example, work fewer hours on average than their European counterparts, yet have the highest productivity. The OECD has a great data set online that tracks many statistics about work hours and productivity across developed countries.

I've blogged before about happiness, and how Scandinavian countries usually lead the pack in that measure. Work/life balance is an important component of that formula. It will be interesting to see the results of this experiment!