Work colleagues

[scottsdad]

20 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Lone working has also become very popular among employers who don't give a shit about their employees' safety.

This is an interesting wee debate for my wife. She is in the office 3 days per week and her manager is going nuts working out a rota to make sure there are 2 folk in the office at all times. Safety has been cited as a reason.  Quite why is anyone's guess - others have their own offices, and the office next door to my wife's has people in it too.

It is being used as justification for bringing people in 3 days per week as opposed to the 1 or 2 they have been doing for about a year now. 

[BFTD]

13 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

This is an interesting wee debate for my wife. She is in the office 3 days per week and her manager is going nuts working out a rota to make sure there are 2 folk in the office at all times. Safety has been cited as a reason.  Quite why is anyone's guess - others have their own offices, and the office next door to my wife's has people in it too.

It is being used as justification for bringing people in 3 days per week as opposed to the 1 or 2 they have been doing for about a year now. 

Well, nice that they're thinking about it, I suppose, even if it is part of an agenda.

I was thinking more about off-licences, bookies, that kind of thing; late-night customer-facing jobs where dealing with violent jakes and robberies is commonplace.

[DiegoDiego]

Bit of a myth to think that hiring more people means less work for everyone else. In my experience, more folk are hired and more work is piled on (then folk leave and the original staff have more to do).

If you can cut man hours by 20% without any loss in productivity then what other explanations are there?

[Fullerene]

You can also increase productivity by increasing salary.  Funny that.  The more you reward your staff the harder they work - up to a point.

More motivation probably.

More time off can be just as motivating as more money.  

You are assuming that everyone is working flat out but if they were then why would you ever give them a salary increase or other improved conditions.

It is always a trade off.

[DiegoDiego]

You are assuming that everyone is working flat out but if they were then why would you ever give them a salary increase or other improved conditions.
It is always a trade off.

Because your competitors are offering more and your salaries need to remain "£ competitive".

You do talk sense though and the world of "jobs" encompasses a huge range of tasks along a spectrum of how time sensitive they are

[coprolite]

55 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

2 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Bit of a myth to think that hiring more people means less work for everyone else. In my experience, more folk are hired and more work is piled on (then folk leave and the original staff have more to do).

If you can cut man hours by 20% without any loss in productivity then what other explanations are there?

Productivity isn't the same as production. 

If you cut man hours by 20% and that cuts production by 19%, productivity will have increased but you won't have enough resource to do the 100% production that the firm was doing. 

[Boghead ranter]

8 hours ago, Fullerene said:

Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time available.

Parkinson's Law 2 : Cock expands so as to fill secretary.

[Thistle_do_nicely]

On 03/06/2022 at 12:48, BFTD said:

Don't forget the P&B favourite - a good long shite right after your lunch break has finished, and not before.

I can also recommend nipping out with the smokers - good ten minutes per outing knocked off the working day, and you get to keep up with all the office gossip.

I've learned so much from this forum.

I mind when i finally got decent at doing multi drop home deliveries i finally had the time to have a smoke both before and after completing runs, and no i wasnt an awful White Van Man, just learned the best routes to go and what i could get away with when parking, genuinely drove very safely/responsibly as it was made clear it was my driving licence on the line if i fucked up; the "sound" supervisor didnt really care (basically as long as i was meeting the schedules and not fucking up the deliveries she wasnt fussed) but the store manager and one off the other supervisors hummed and hawwed about it, eventually the manager actually fucking watched me on cctv and pulled me up after a delivery run "oh i saw you have a cigarette and left 5 minutes late on the schedule, i know you got back on time but please dont do that again, we need you out on time in case theres traffic issues". Found it a bit weird/voyeuristic but hey yo. I mean she was right at the end of the day but i never hid that i was smoking.

Normally im not one for shithousery but after that i did exactly what they asked, no smoking before runs - still sparked up whenever i got back - but at the first high rise of the day i delivered to (very common so just about guaranteed to get at least one highrise each run, often early on the run with the way the routes were calculated) id spark up. They could theoretically track the van location after the delivery, but if they queried it it'd be easy to bullshit that the lifts were slow or they took a minute to answer the door, oh sorry lol it was really hard to park there etc. etc.

The manager liked asking me to do pointless busywork/fucking cleaning stuff if it was quiet. I saw the job a bit different, all i cared about was making the deliveries to the right people and not damaging any goods/the van tbh, wasnt paid enough/given enough leeway when the roads were murder with temporary lights everywhere to care enough about any other shite they asked me to do so quite happily just half arsed any """additional reasonable duties as requested by your manager""" they flung at me. Pfffffft.

I did merrily chainsmoke once i handed in my notice there tho, have to admit.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Thistle_do_nicely

[Wile E Coyote]

2 hours ago, Boghead ranter said:

Cecil Parkinson's Law 2 : Cock expands so as to fill secretary.

FTFY

[Satoshi]

18 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

If companies can cut man hours by 20% and maintain the same productivity then surely that means they've been massively overhiring due to inefficient management.

Surely this isn't the case over all industries in these countries?

Not really what the research shows though, as has been covered in the previous page.

It's the same argument that was used when managers wanted to keep people working 6 or 7 days a week.

It's covered quite a bit in one the chapters of a utopian for realists want to read more or plenty of peer reviewed journals.

I'm confident the trial in the UK will be a success, pretty much every other one has.

12 hours ago, scottsdad said:

This is an interesting wee debate for my wife. She is in the office 3 days per week and her manager is going nuts working out a rota to make sure there are 2 folk in the office at all times. Safety has been cited as a reason.  Quite why is anyone's guess - others have their own offices, and the office next door to my wife's has people in it too.

It is being used as justification for bringing people in 3 days per week as opposed to the 1 or 2 they have been doing for about a year now. 

Hah, got to wonder what motivates these managers, it's bizarre behaviour on the face of it.

 

11 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

13 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Bit of a myth to think that hiring more people means less work for everyone else. In my experience, more folk are hired and more work is piled on (then folk leave and the original staff have more to do).

If you can cut man hours by 20% without any loss in productivity then what other explanations are there?

Oh plenty, there's not necessarily a linear correlation between hiring and gross productivity, never mind productivity per staff.

I worked with a colleague once who negotiated 4 days working but extra hours and paid in full. It was an extraordinary sweetheart deal for someone and nobody really knew why she got it (fair play to her tho). The working hours for the rest of us were a standard 9/5 even when many competitors has the popular 9 day fortnight.

Many workers these days, including myself, are in the knowledge industry. This is very different from factory work where you have a set number of inputs. The work of knowledge workers is theoretically never done, many people work very long hours and some work far less than the norm. It depends on my factors.

I quite liked working from home as you have more flexibility as to what you do and when. Sometimes you work late, sometimes you start late or finish early. So long as you're available broadly when you need to be, and your work gets done, it doesn't really matter (nor should it).

I reckon I could easily be as productive on four days as I am in five, as could the overwhelming majority of knowledge workers.

And the better you get at your job, the less time you need to spend doing it, it becomes far more intuitive and less googling (erm, research).

Someone touched on it earlier, but the opposition to this isn't based on facts and research (which are unequivocally in favour) but rather the fact more senior decision makers are men in their 50s and 60s who think their life story is what should be replicated. It's a tale as old as time really, the exact the same type of people who opposed giving Saturdays off. They may claim some victories but they will lose the war.

And there's a whole bunch of environmental and wealth reasons why it should be implemented, even if it did affect productivity (at least in wealthy nations).

Edited June 7, 2022 by Satoshi

[DiegoDiego]

Surely it's a fraction of jobs which that would work with though.

If you can cut the hours of doctors by 20% and get the same productivity then we've got too many doctors.

[Satoshi]

4 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

Surely it's a fraction of jobs which that would work with though.

If you can cut the hours of doctors by 20% and get the same productivity then we've got too many doctors.
 

It won't necessarily apply to all jobs, just most.

Doctors work obscene hours and (used to) have to sign a waiver exempting them from EU working directives. Doctor error is one of the leading causes of death worldwide.

They absolutely should be working less hours.

[DiegoDiego]

It won't necessarily apply to all jobs, just most.

They absolutely should be working less hours.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be working fewer hours, just that it would impact the amount of work done.

I'd be surprised if it was most jobs either. I can't find accurate statistics, but a majority of the UK workforce have jobs in industries which are not office based (such as social work, education, manufacturing, retail and transport). You can't cut a bus driver or barman's hours without impacting services.

[Fullerene]

7 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

Surely it's a fraction of jobs which that would work with though.

If you can cut the hours of doctors by 20% and get the same productivity then we've got too many doctors.

Doctors don't make stuff.  They cure people.

"Whoopee.  I did 5 hip replacements this week.  On a roll.  I think next week I will try and do 7."

[welshbairn]

2 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

 

I'm not saying they shouldn't be working fewer hours, just that it would impact the amount of work done.

I'd be surprised if it was most jobs either. I can't find accurate statistics, but a majority of the UK workforce have jobs in industries which are not office based (such as social work, education, manufacturing, retail and transport). You can't cut a bus driver or barman's hours without impacting services.

I've got a friend who does electrical maintenance work for Post Office properties like sorting offices etc. He used to organise his week so he could knock off a couple of hours early on a Friday by storming through the work load. Then they introduced car and phone tracking so he just plods through the week and says sorry, can't do it, maybe next week. He's unhappy but resigned to it, their productivity has dropped.

Edited June 7, 2022 by welshbairn

[DiegoDiego]

Doctors don't make stuff.  They cure people.
"Whoopee.  I did 5 hip replacements this week.  On a roll.  I think next week I will try and do 7."

Exactly, so cutting their hours won't increase productivity.

[welshbairn]

21 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

Doctors don't make stuff.  They cure people.

"Whoopee.  I did 5 hip replacements this week.  On a roll.  I think next week I will try and do 7."

I bet that happens, from my deep knowledge of medical dramas, surgeons are very competitive. And an extra day on the golf course?

Edited June 7, 2022 by welshbairn

[Donathan]

39 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

52 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

Doctors don't make stuff.  They cure people.
"Whoopee.  I did 5 hip replacements this week.  On a roll.  I think next week I will try and do 7."

Exactly, so cutting their hours won't increase productivity.

No one is saying this logic applies to every industry, but it absolutely does apply to office type jobs 

[GordonD]

14 hours ago, welshbairn said:

I bet that happens, from my deep knowledge of medical dramas, surgeons are very competitive. And an extra day on the golf course?

And recently touched on in Coronation Street.

[Satoshi]

17 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

I'm not saying they shouldn't be working fewer hours, just that it would impact the amount of work done.

I'd be surprised if it was most jobs either. I can't find accurate statistics, but a majority of the UK workforce have jobs in industries which are not office based (such as social work, education, manufacturing, retail and transport). You can't cut a bus driver or barman's hours without impacting services.

In some cases yeah, but the world could do with less consumption and consumerism anyway. Ideally a 4 day week would lead to less health conditions and less demand on these services (but even if people worked 7 days a week it wouldn't cover the backlog). Best to make being a medical professional a more appealing and less stressful job to attract staff. It's pretty horrific at the moment I'm not surprised they struggle to attract and retain staff.

15 hours ago, Fullerene said:

Doctors don't make stuff.  They cure people.

"Whoopee.  I did 5 hip replacements this week.  On a roll.  I think next week I will try and do 7."

Indeed, and it's an indication of the cult of management consultancy infecting the public sector.

Management consultants can, using some basic techniques, transform inefficient factories but the same type of methodology is lazily applied to stuff like the legal system, healthcare and prisons / schools where it is clearly unsuitable and damaging to the service being provided. It helps that many ministers are from a consulting or finance background, and only care about the figures not the service.

The legal system is a raging dumpster fire at the moment and wil only get worse (read the Secret Barrister or this is going to hurt for an insight into the lives of junior doctors).

Basically, in a management consulting world, if you're not in a role or industry that makes money you're probably going go to be fucked over, bad news for Social Care certainly.