How does one measure progress? Is working longer hours a progress to be proud of (as the simplistic bashing of the French who refuse to go that way implies)? Or should progress be measured by the increase of real leisure time and good health? How many people get sick because of excessive "working" hours? How productive are people who are overworked/overexploited? I wonder what are the results (in terms of productivity and global health -for the individual, the family, the community at large) of the 4 day work week experience in Canada? As I recall the 4 day work week started in the US (Quaker Oats?) but apparently so much theatened vested interests it did not take hold. I am convinced that in many instances there would be no loss of productivity with less hours than by forcing people into unsustainable schedules.
As for the economic impact of more leisure it would certainly create more jobs... in all leisure related sectors and decrease the number of days lost to illness and accidents. Is the fact that the US is beyond most industrial countries in paid vacation a sign of superiority or the result of very weak unions that stopped obtaining for all the workforce what has been in achieved without any major disruption in the last 50 years and is taken for granted in most EU countries? How long is the standard paid vacation at Edelman-USA? How long is the standard paid vacation at Edelman in France? Just curious :)

Bravo, Richard! We need more experienced professionals pointing out the productivity perils of running a rat race.

One of the reasons why people are working very long hours is because the nature of business has changed despite advantages gained from technology that faciitate communications. Two of these changes are: 1) speed to market--- getting products out has reached supersonic speed. The companies that are most competent in this arena are the ones that are winning the game; 2) corporate structures are still stuck in the old managerial/ hierarchical structural models despite working in a global market that requires a great deal of flexability.

Technology is a catch-22. It is the cause of people working long hours due to increased accessability, but it can also provide solutions to this distressing situation. In particular, the PR industry, which is based on relations as Richard points out, has much to gain. Moves in this direction are already under way as savvy companies analyze their internal social networks and identify bottlenecks. Intel Corp., for example, sees an opportunity in creating technology that lowers the time cost of teamwork. At Intel, the drive to reduce the time spent sharing knowledge and collaborating is an outgrowth of efforts to better coordinate far-flung operations that stretch from Israel to India. One idea being pursued is "dynamic profiling" -- technologies that automatically summarize areas on which a researcher or a manager is focusing, based on the subjects of their e-mails and Web searches. The PR industry that focuses on collaborative idea-generation could also utilize dynamic profiling and other web-based organizations.

We probably will see a rise in new forms of Web-based organizations where people can contribute without having their time eaten up by existing corporate hierarchies. Blogs, collaborative online databases (wikis) and open-source software development all use the Net to handle much of the coordination among people rather than relying on top-down command and control. Embracing technological innovation could eventually lessen bureaucratic time burdens on overworked professionals. For further reading, a good article on the subject is:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_40/b3953601.htm

N
Thanks for adding to the conversation. I believe firmly in technology as a means of lowering stress and adding to efficiency. I see a different face of technology, however, in excessive blackberry addiction, a neurotic need to be constantly on line and a lack of time for thinking. Anyway we should all be conscious that overwork does not yield optimal results.

Yes, I do tend to agree with you. There was a great article in Washington Post last year on how people develop tendinitis. It was called "For Some, Thumb Pain Is BlackBerry's Stain."

Thanks for writing!

Nabeela

Living in Japan where there is no BlackBerry (yet), I always notice how North Americans comment on how relaxed they are when they visit Tokyo on business trips. Several have spoken about how 'liberated' they feel, sounding almost like reformed smokers who are no longer enslaved by cigarettes. Freedom to focus and to think rather than to respond spasmodically to fragments of always-incoming information still seems to be valued.

It's no secret that Japanese working hours tend to be longer than those in America, but even though some have questioned -- with reason -- the productivity of those hours, I have been to enough meetings in the US and Canada in recent years -- where people rudely no longer pay attention or listen to each other as they constantly check e-mail -- to see how BlackBerry may inhibit rather than aid productivity (at least when used in a compulsive way, which regrettably seems pretty common).

In Japan a 12-hour day may be pretty standard (plus what can be brutal commuting time), but there seems to be a clearer demarcation between personal time and company time that the BlackBerry has helped to blur elsewhere. Americans (and Europeans of course) do get to go home earlier, but when they are there, less and less of their time outside of the office really belongs to them it would appear and I think that's a pity.