The article here boils down to arguing that the answers to these three questions aren’t representative of productivity:
1. Meets formal performance requirements of the job
2. Fulfills responsibilities specified in job description
3. Performs tasks that are expected of him or her
As an employee, those should cover everything I’m evaluated on; any company that claims this isn’t enough is either horribly mismanaged or trying to exploit its workers by requiring them to do things they didn’t sign up for.
> a productivity drive without shorter work hours might increase output, so there would still be a trade-off.
This could also be interpreted as an incentive to go to a 6 day work week. The article is obviously written mostly from an employer's point of view. But in all reality productivity has gone up in the past 4 decades with no meaningful increase in pay [0]. Given the current productivity levels maybe it no longer makes sense to look at the work week only as a measure of employer happiness but also think of employee happiness. The current work week is designed almost exclusively around maximizing the employer's benefit in the quest for ever increasing profits. Something that's often overlooked because employers have far greater bargaining power than employees.
Any decrease in productivity could be easily offset by increasing the workforce with benefits across the board (unemployment/economy/etc.). Except for the employer. Which is why nobody touches the work week and pay is linked to time worked instead of productivity.
That’s a view that works if you want a static job, like a passport inspector. No one expects or wants them to go “above and beyond.” But in a company like Google, the work that needs to be done is far harder to define, and change frequently. You cannot expect to be promoted or even stay employed if you are just planning on doing what was specifically enumerated in the job description when you applied. for the job.
1. Meets formal performance requirements of the job
2. Fulfills responsibilities specified in job description
3. Performs tasks that are expected of him or her
As an employee, those should cover everything I’m evaluated on; any company that claims this isn’t enough is either horribly mismanaged or trying to exploit its workers by requiring them to do things they didn’t sign up for.