One proponent for shorter workdays is an instructor here at Penn.
Penn professor Adam Grant, Wharton’s youngest tenured and highest rated professor, highlighted the benefits of shortening the workday by two hours in a LinkedIn post last Sunday. Grant's post referenced an article published in the Atlantic which examined the mismatch between the end of school days and work days.
Grant said spending more time at work does not necessarily mean higher productivity.
“It's crazy that the school day ends two hours before the work day,” Grant wrote. “But instead of making school days longer, let’s make work days shorter."
"We can be as productive and creative in 6 focused hours as in 8 unfocused hours," Grant added.
A researcher of success and motivation in the workplace, Grant’s suggestion is in line with several other findings from research experiments on the matter. A Swedish experiment about the future of work, conducted in February 2015, had employees of a nursing home switch to a six-hour workday with no pay cut. The results showed that during the first 18 months, workers’ health and productivity had improved — with 85 percent more activities for seniors being planned, according to BBC.
Grant was ranked as one of the world’s 25 most influential management thinkers and one of Fortune’s 40 under 40 in 2016. Grant has written three New York Times bestselling books, including "Option B," which he co-authored with Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg.
Grant is also known for being critical of Penn’s “hyper-competitive” culture, arguing that it has a negative impact on campus mental health. However, students have pointed out that Grant teaches one of the hardest classes to get into.
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