[ExI] france again

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On May 30, 2007, at 10:20 PM, spike wrote:
> Are there Europeans here who can comment?  If this is true, not a  
> gross
> exaggeration, I am so amazed.  35 hour work week?  How do they get  
> anything
> done in that much time?


Total productivity is only loosely related to the number of hours  
worked and productivity declines after a certain number of hours  
worked (especially mental stuff), so it sort of comes out in the  
wash.  Maximization of productivity in the working hours should allow  
one to be competitive on a moderate work schedule.

That said, having a fair amount of experience with multinationals,  
American divisions seem to routinely out-perform and out-produce  
their European equivalents, whether we are talking sales or  
engineering.  It is a combination of limited hours (no busting ass to  
hit deadlines), large quantities of time off (lots of things get  
bottlenecked waiting for people to return), and some miscellaneous  
cultural artifacts that seem to noticeably slow things down.

Americans could be hyper-competitive working shorter hours if they  
wanted to.  Working long hours on a typical basis doesn't add much to  
the bottom line, but having the flexibility to work long hours when  
it is useful does.   Something similar goes for vacation time.   The  
real problem, which neither the Americans nor Europeans really have  
right, is that work often needs to be scheduled but for many jobs the  
working hours do not as long as scheduled work happens.  In this day  
and age, hours worked is a poor proxy for measuring output for many  
jobs.

Cheers,

J. Andrew Rogers