To think 'Full time' should mean less hours?

In every job I have had you are paid for your time and to meet targets. Targets matter and failure to hit them more than once or twice will lead to disciplinary. They are not optional.

The link between hours and output really fascinates me as we arent machines that just consistently output stuff. I dont even output the same day to day.

I think it works better for some jobs than others.

What does ‘lack of productivity’ in the public sector’ even mean? The facts are that we are working a damn sight harder than people were in the 00s and 90s, and that was a damn sight more than in the 60s. In the NHS more people are going through the system being treated in less time, with more acuity and fewer staff. That’s why things like a weeks stay in hospital after childbirth, for mumps, having your tonsils out or for a broken leg are all laughable dreams nowadays. Maternity units now are closing. Whatever the government says in their facts and figures is a lie, everyone who actually works knows this.

You cannot keep just demanding more work for less from public sector workers forever. Already Band 1 on the NHS has gone and I think the Band 2 on the NHS is going as soon as the new minimum wage increase comes in. I am already being paid the same as cleaners for very skilled work which requires me to engage in a year long training package with courses and qualification requirements and pathways, how much longer do you think I’m going to keep reading about how the median wage is now nearly £40k while watching the minimum wage go up and being treated like dirt by the public and media? What kind of people do you want to attract into the NHS? More foreigners with less and less ability to communicate? The tide has turned on cheap foreigners because they are causing social problems. The youngsters i work with are already angry and getting more so. There is talk of healthcare staff striking, because we are not your slaves.

Being underemployed is grim!

Yes I jumped to private sector and my job is way easier

I wish i could do all my work for the week in one day. Who is employing you to do that where? It wont be frontline NHS or in the immediate support services.

You’re misunderstanding me. The current system is that in all jobs you are contracted hourly. The actual reality is that you/the organisation is trying to meet a target – whether that is X profit made, X patients seen, X units moved – whatever.

Hours worked is arbitrary to a target being met. And really bloody arbitrary when all these targets seem to be coincidentally and satisfactorily appeared to be seen to be met at 37 hours, regardless of specific industry or specific target.

The actual, tangible elements you are working with are a target and the productivity of your workers. When studies have evidenced that productivity peaks, plateaus and wanes at a certain number of hours a week, it’s time to move on from the archaic system of ‘contracted hours’.

Well yes, of course you are expected to achieve and not just turn up and sit there !

I was responding to the claim targets are flexible if you don't meet them. Not in my experience

There was a study that supported people reducing to 4 days a week (in predominantly office based jobs) that showed a minimal decline in productivity. But for many businesses/orgs they have a mixed workforce, some on shifts, who do work/ are needed for all the hours they are paid for. So how would that work?

I'd be wary of wanting AI to do part of a job because it won't be long before it's doing all of it. Then you'll have all the time you want but without the money.

Indeed.

As a teacher who uses every second of my working day to get jobs done, I'm always interested by the notion that companies can go down to 4-day weeks and people can get the same amount of work done in 4 days as they were previously doing in 5. Doesn't that mean there wasn't enough work to spread over 5 days to start with and people were not working at capacity?

Hopefully, AI will replace all you public sector slackers and the insane council tax rises will stop.

So if you can do the job in less hours. Do that and then the council can not replace the next one of you that leaves, thus saving us, your bosses money?

Nice wind up. You won’t get computers doing the job for you at no cost. You will actually have to pay the real cost of the production of energy and of the water that they require, and then double because the American companies have complete control of the means of production, and then double again because no one else can afford anything and the economy collapses.

As for public sector ‘slackers’ … well as I said it’s a wind up. But I wish you would come into the hospitals and send your kids to school with labels on so that we could actually commit the crime of which we are constantly accused against you and yours, and get away with it because the police, law courts and all council staff are similarly unbothered.

YANBU. Many employers have gone down to four days successfully.

Go on read the opening words of her post. Hate that

I am talking about the town hall slackers, not the hospital workers or teachers. I have seen how hard the latter work.

well they don't as it's public sector and I am a manager myself so definitely no bonus! and yes they should be employing 2 or 3 people to do my job but being public sector this would only be funded by tax increases.

I know the image of public sector is everyone sitting around talking about what they watched on telly and doing sod all, but it's not true where I work.

I worked at a town hall once. So much time spent form filling to get more biscuits.

I expect they made you redundant pretty swiftly if that was the extent of your duties.