6-Hour Workdays in Sweden Boost Productivity, Energy, and Happiness

Apart from being on a vacation, the other thing that might interest most employees is a shorter workday. A study conducted by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics found out that Americans work an average of 44 hours a week –that’s around 8.8 hours each day. Learn more about how 6-hour workdays in Sweden boost productivity, energy, and happiness.

The problem is hard work doesn’t always lead to more productivity. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found out that during the 8.8-hour workday, most people were truly productive for less than three hours. If you want to boost the productivity of your enterprise, then you should consider shortening your workday. The six-hour workday has not only boosted productivity but also happiness and energy. Here’s why!

The Six-Hour Experiment
The Swedish government had a puzzling question back in 2015. The question was: if people worked for only six hours a day and got paid for eight, would this make them more productive? They experimented and got an interesting answer.

Related: What Scandinavians Can Teach Us About Work Culture

The government ran a controlled experiment at the Svartedalens retirement home in Gothenburg, Sweden where they had their staff working for six hours in a day but got paid for eight. They compared the data with another group in a similar facility and the results were surprising.

The Discovery
The Swedish government discovered that the six-hour workday has lots of benefits for the employees. Some of these benefits include:

Productivity boost
The nurses working six hours a day were 64 percent more productive than those who worked for hours. They also provided high-quality care to their patients. While the experiment was done in a nursing home, it doesn’t mean that the results cannot be translated into the world of business. A boost in productivity is likely to lead to enhanced creativity, teamwork, and energy.

Related: Parental leave when working in Scandinavia

Improved health
Another fascinating finding of the six-hour study was that employees took half the amount of sick time that their eight-hour colleagues took in a year. This gave them more energy at work and helped them engage with their patients. Scientific studies conducted by assignment writing have shown that overworked employees have a higher chance of falling into depression. Therefore, shorter hours signify improved mood and confidence in your employees. Healthy workers have a healthy relationship with their vendors, clients, and employees.

Stress reduction
In the United States, close to one million workers fail to show up to work due to stress. Around 66 percent of Americans report that work is one of their major sources of stress in life. With fewer working hours, stress levels go down naturally. And this makes it easier for employees to meet their job expectations and deadlines. Plus, they can balance between work and home. And this makes them happier.

More engaged employees
Do your employees come to work because they are interested in the mission of your organization or is it just a means to an end? Wouldn’t it be great if they thought about your mission? With a six-hour workday, employees tend to be more engaged and invested in the organization’s objectives. And this leads to great success for both the employer and employee since both are committed to common values.

With the majority of Americans working more than 40 hours per week, it’s easy to determine how reducing this burden can make people productive at work and also make it easier for them to achieve their personal goals.

Related: Doing Business in Sweden

Tips to boost productivity
Track and limit time spent on tasks

According to writing assignment, most people think that they are great at gauging how much time they spend on different tasks. However, research studies show that only 17 percent of people can accurately estimate how much time they spend on tasks. You should consider using apps like Rescue Time to know exactly how much time you are spending on different tasks such as email, social media, and word processing to name a few.

Take regular breaks
While this sounds counterintuitive, taking scheduled breaks can help in enhancing concentration. Taking short breaks regularly will help you maintain your performance all day long. Working continuously without taking short breaks leads to a decline in productivity and performance in the long run.

Avoid multitasking
Multitasking is one of the top productivity killers. Research studies have shown that switching tasks reduced productivity by as much as 40 percent. Another study conducted by the University of Sussex found out that multitasking harms your brain. People who multitask have lower gray matter in the brain which is linked to empathy, decision-making, and rewards. Therefore, stop trying to do two or more things at once. Focus on one task at a time.

Write down your to-do list the night before
To-do lists are essential productivity aids. They help you get organized while rewarding you with feelings of fulfillment and satisfaction when you cross off things that you’ve accomplished. Creating your to-do list means that you won’t be wasting time in the morning trying to figure out which task you should work on.

Forget about perfection
According to best assignment help, it’s common for most people to get caught up trying to perfect a task. However, you’ll never do anything perfectly. Instead of wasting time and energy chasing after an illusion, do your tasks to the best of your abilities and move forward. Instead of focusing on perfection, focus on progress. Remember, you can always revisit a particular task and improve on it.

Be proactive
You should not allow phone calls and emails to dictate how you spend your time. You’ll never accomplish anything of value if you spend your entire day answering phone calls and replying to your emails. You need to set a particular time of the day to respond to others. However, don’t let them run your day.

Turn off notifications
It’s not easy to resist an email, text, or voicemail notification. While working, turn off your notifications and allocate a specific period during the day to check messages and email.

6-Hour Workdays in Sweden Boost Productivity, Energy, and Happiness – Conclusion

Increasing your productivity is essential if you want to promote your business. You can do it by implementing the six-hour workday policy and using the tips that we’ve discussed.

6-Hour Workdays in Sweden Boost Productivity, Energy, and Happiness, written exclusively for Daily Scandinavian by Charlie Svensson. Charlie is fast, engaging freelance writer at essay writing service reviews, dissertation help and EssayWritingLand. Skilled in content writing and blogging. The favorite topics of his posts are education, social media, marketing, SEO, motivation blogging and self-growth. Excellent adaptability of skills to reach diverse audiences.

Feature image (on top): Photo by Oscar Helgstrand / Unsplash