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Angle--What technology lead to the breakdown?

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Angle--What technology lead to the breakdown?

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What certain technology lead to the breakdown of office work?

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In what place in technology did out of office work start?

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Who put in place the 40 hour work week?

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When did the actual break down of 40 hours happen?

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"Unions did not create" the eight-hour work day and the 40-hour work week. "Henry Ford did."

By Louis Jacobson on Wednesday, September 9th, 2015 at 3:54 p.m.

Unions did not create: --8-hour work days --A "living wage" (doubled worker's pay from $2.34/hr to $5/hr) --Five-day, 40-hour work weeks Henry Ford did in 1926 to attract better workers from his competitors for his automobile plant. Capitalism & competition creates higher wages & better working conditions. #HappyLaborDay.
On Labor Day weekend, it's not unusual to see claims about unions circulating on social media -- both favorable and unfavorable.
A long struggle
A shareable graphic critical of organized labor caught the eye of a PolitiFact reader, who decided to forward it to us for a fact-check. The viral image said:

We wondered whether it was correct that Henry Ford, rather than unions, should get credit for creating the eight-hour work day and the 40-hour work week.

In the United States, a few limited eight-hour-day laws were on the books shortly after the Civil War. One, in Illinois, was passed in 1867, followed in 1868 by a law covering certain classes of federal workers. But neither law was well-enforced, and in most sectors, working hours of 10 to 12 hours were common. So a reduction in the work week became a leading issue for the nascent labor movement.
Ford's move
The issue came to a head in 1884, after the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions -- a predecessor of today's AFL-CIO -- called for all workers to have eight-hour days by May 1, 1886. When that deadline wasn't met, labor leaders upped the ante by calling for demonstrations. In Chicago, peaceful marches morphed into violence, with an explosion marring a rally at Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886, leaving seven police officers and four workers dead. Subsequent trials, executions and clemencies for the accused made the eight-hour week a top issue nationally and internationally.

All of this occurred decades before Ford founded his company in 1903.

In 1914, at a time when most workers still lacked a guarantee of eight-hour days, the Ford Motor Co. attracted notice for instituting eight-hour shifts and raising wages in the manner the graphic indicates. (For many Ford workers, the work week remained six days.)

The company's move -- made a dozen years earlier than the graphic said -- was significant, labor historians say. But they add that it's worth noting some caveats. For instance, Ford's " 'sociological department' had to inspect a worker's home to make sure they 'deserved' the $5 first," said Ileen A. DeVault, a professor of labor relations, law and history at Cornell University.
The endgame
In addition, Ford's policy wasn't law, so it wasn't guaranteed to last indefinitely, even for those who qualified for it.

"It was a unilaterally provided benefit at the discretion of the employer and could be yanked away whenever the cost exceeded profits," said Robert Bruno, a professor with the University of Illinois School of Labor and Employment Relations. Companies that operated this way, Bruno said, often revoked these policies when the Great Depression hit.

Ford's initiative was not widely copied overnight. In 1916, the federal government passed an act to require an eight-hour day and overtime pay for railroad workers, but most workers still didn't have those protections, and working hours remained a hotly contested issue. "Demands for the five-day week began to proliferate in 1919, a year in which 4 million American workers went out on strike," said Priscilla Murolo, a professor of history at Sarah Lawrence College. "That was about 20 percent of the industrial labor force."

It took President Franklin D. Roosevelt's signing of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 for all workers to see limits on working hours -- initially 44 hours a week, then phased to 42 and eventually 40 by 1940. "When the FLSA was passed in 1938, Saturday working hours were still common," DeVault said. "Saturday noon was the most frequent 'payday' time."

Given this history, Ford is best described as an early adopter of today's familiar working hours, experts said.

"That happened more than 60 years after workers, through their unions, began organizing for an eight-hour day in the 1860s," said David Bensman, a professor at Rutgers University's School of Management and Labor Relations. "When Ford adopted the eight-hour day for his factory, he was responding to a working force that had been demanding the eight-hour day for a long time."
Our ruling
Other experts agreed that labor unions, rather than Ford, deserve the primary credit for today's working-hour schedule -- including Matt Anderson, curator of transportation at the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Mich.

"Henry Ford was an early proponent of the five-day week, but the American Federation of Labor fought for it to be adopted more widely via contract negotiations," Anderson said. "Unions absolutely deserve much credit for the reform."

A viral image said that Henry Ford, not unions, created the eight-hour work day and the five-day work week.

Ford does deserve credit for adopting shorter working shifts, but he was hardly the first employer to do this, and the now-standard working schedule did not become federal law -- and thus a right for all workers -- until almost a quarter-century after Ford's move. Meanwhile, experts said, unions do deserve credit for keeping the working-hours issue alive, at significant personal sacrifice, for 70 years.

The claim contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, so we rate it Mostly False.

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Does the 8-hour day and the 40-hour week come from Henry Ford, or labor unions?

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On Labor Day weekend, it's not unusual to see claims about unions circulating on social media -- both favorable and unfavorable. A shareable graphic critical of organized labor caught the eye of a PolitiFact reader, who decided to forward it to us for a fact-check.

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Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. It's the schedule the vast majority of us in salaried positions follow, and have followed for the past several decades. Legally, 40 hours of work each week is considered "full-time," and demands certain full-time benefits, and any work done beyond those 40 hours is considered overtime (though many full-time employees are not paid for overtime). The traditional "9 to 5" day has become a familiar staple of office culture and work culture in general, but entrepreneurs and managers are starting to discover the flaws in such an employment model.

Many companies are already adapting to find better alternatives to the conventional 40-hour workweek, and those that aren't may find themselves outpaced as the 40-hour approach slowly works its way into obsolescence.
Standardized Expectations
The root motivation for creating and enforcing a consistent "40-hour workweek" expectation across the board is to establish a sense of fairness-both in making sure no employee receives special treatment and in making sure employees are not abused or taken advantage of by management. To date, the system hasn't failed, but can it truly be called successful?

A recent survey found that of 1,200 American adults, 18 percent worked 60 hours or more every week, with another 21 percent claiming to work between 50 and 59 hours. Still another 11 percent estimated between 41 and 49 hours per week, leaving a total of 50 percent of American adults working more than 40 hours every week. Occasionally, this is due to personal motivation, but more often it's due to peer pressure or pressure from upper management to stay later and work harder.

In this way, the 40-hour workweek is already dead. In some cases, the regimented schedule is completely ignored in favor of meeting certain project needs. In others, it is so strictly adhered to that it becomes a fault. Either way, the pretense of a standardized 40-hour workweek is an obsolete notion.
The Threats to Productivity
Giving all your employees exactly the same schedule and exactly the same number of hours may seem like a "fair" system, but it's ultimately illogical. Real life doesn't adhere to such fixed standards, and trying to compartmentalize the natural flow of work can lead to serious problems in individual and company-wide productivity:

Burnout. Two types of burnout can come from the 40-hour workweek. First, coming and going at the same times every day, day in and day out, can lead to mental exhaustion. It's inspired many future entrepreneurs to bail out just because they're sick of the "same old routine." Second, many employees and institutions view that 40 hour mark as a minimum, or as a challenge to do more, and end up working as many hours as possible just to prove a point. This type of behavior will only result in eventual fatigue, causing productivity to crash.

Less individual efficiency. Not everyone works the same. Your accountant might work very efficiently at 6 in the morning and be ready for a nap around 3. Your designer might prefer to sleep in until noon and then work through the evening. Confining everyone to that strict 9 to 5 schedule naturally reduces everyone's potential efficiency.

Less creative stimulation. Innovation is driven by the new-new ideas, new situations, new environments, and new perspectives. If you create an environment that never changes and is always the same, you'll stop innovation dead in its tracks.

More distractions. Collecting everyone together for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week might seem like it encourages more collaboration, but the reality is that it opens the door to more distractions. More unnecessary meetings pop up, more useless conversations take up time, and more people are called away from their projects to answer questions on unrelated matters.

No natural response. For most businesses, work comes and goes. There are busy periods and slow periods. Applying a 40-hour structure year-round means your employees will have long periods of boredom in the office, followed by extended bursts that require significant overtime. An ideal work schedule would reflexively accommodate such changes.

The Alternatives

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Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. It's the schedule the vast majority of us in salaried positions follow, and have followed for the past several decades. Legally, 40 hours of work each week is considered "full-time," and demands certain full-time benefits, and any work done beyond those 40 hours is [...]

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Fall of the 40 Hour Work Week-Definition

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Fall of the 40 Hour Work Week-Definition

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The normal FLSA "work period" is the "work week" -- 7 consecutive days -- and the normal FLSA overtime threshold is 40 hours per work week. ... It is, therefore, permissible for an employer to use the word "overtime" to mean something different from the definition of "overtime" in the FLSA.

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The 40 hour work week is a myth, a legend from years past. In many modern workplaces, you are more likely to see a unicorn in the conference room than an employee who punches in at 9 and out at 5.

This doesn't mean that today's talent works less than 40 hours, and in many cases the opposite is true. Many knowledge workers start working the minute they roll out of bed. They check emails at sunrise, or hop on early calls with distributed team-members and overseas customers. By the time they roll into the office, they have already worked 3 or 4 hours.

For the most part, this freedom is a good thing. But the absence of boundaries between work and life can have long-term detrimental effects on employee productivity and performance.

Why 40 hours?

Eighty years ago, it was normal for people to work an average of 70+ hours each week. At one point employees (including children!) were required to work 14 hour days.

All of that changed in 1926 when Henry Ford standardized the 40 hour work week. His independent research showed that working more yielded only a small increase in productivity that lasted a short period of time. And before long productivity declined.

Finally in 1938, the 40 hour work week became law via the Fair Labor Standards Act. But don't go running through the halls brandishing your copy of the FLSA just yet, this law only applies to hourly employees.

Burn Bright, Burn Out

In November, Fast Company journalist Rachel Gillett wrote an article entitled " Why Rectifying Our Culture of Overwork Is Easier Said Than Done ". Gillett admonishes today's workplace cultures that reward overwork.

Overworking not only creates stress and a lack of balance, but sleep patterns suffer. Reduced downtime between work and sleep stifles innovative and creative thinking. Don't believe me? Just read my last blog post.

Gillett explains that people work more than they should for a variety of reasons:

- They feel pressure to keep going because co-workers are still at their desks.

- Stressful deadlines are put in place, regardless of constraints on creativity.

- Some workplace cultures create the expectation of overwork.

When you're always on fire, you eventually burn out. It is management's responsibility to lead by example and explain that there are other important things in life, like health and family.

The Great Blackout(s) of 2014

During the last week of August and November, our CEO instituted two mandatory blackouts. All 15Five team members were asked not to check email, go into the office, or engage in any 15Five-related activities.

Instead, we were encouraged to relax, travel, read, spend time with family, or spend our time in whatever way has us feeling refreshed and renewed.

When we returned from the first blackout in early September (some of us refreshing and renewing ourselves at Burning Man), we began using a system called the 90 Day Game. Over the next 12 weeks, the team established goals and checked in weekly to report on accomplishments and challenges. We encouraged each other and held each other accountable, and yes many of us worked more than 40 hours during that time.

But that big push produced great results. Some team-members proclaimed that it was the best work they had ever done in their careers. And we again took time to spend with family and friends over Thanksgiving week.

You would think that in the final moments of my last day before vacation I ran down the corridor screaming "so long suckers". Instead, I found it difficult to break away from doing the work that I love.

I checked my email on day one of the blackout and saw a PR opportunity with a rapidly approaching deadline. I thought, "well I'll just do this one task..." Then Tuesday morning came and my latest blog post went live. I thought, "well, I should probably promote this on social media." It wasn't until Wednesday that I was actually able to pull myself away from work entirely.

That is why downtime is so important. Employees fall into the routine of work and it becomes all-consuming and hard to break away from. Thankfully I had an entire week and returned to work healthy, focused, and engaged.

Alternative Scheduling

I am fortunate to work for a company where my well-being is paramount, and I am supported to lead a balanced lifestyle. For those less fortunate, here are some suggestions to convince your boss to consider some alternative scheduling:

1) Offer the advice of other entrepreneurs. The second wealthiest man in the world, Carlos Slim, suggests working only 3 days per week. Of course Slim says that would necessarily extend retirement age to 75. Are you mocking us Carlos?

2) Appeal to their emotions. Have your child write a tender note suggesting that you work too much. Hey, it worked for this Google employee:

3) Offer the advice of a medical professional. Dr. John Ashton has called for the British Government to "switch to a four-day week to help combat high levels of work-related stress, let people spend more time with their families or exercising, and reduce unemployment".

The bottom-line here is that employees need to seek balance in their work-lives. "No pain, no gain" or "work hard, play hard" are not badges of honor. Ask yourself why you are working so much. Are you driven by pure desire, is it an organizational mandate, or do you have something to prove to yourself and others around you?

We are all working towards the fulfillment of company goals, which necessarily means some weeks will require more than 40 hours of work. But sacrificing time with family or the pursuit of personal goals creates disconnection from what is truly important - living well, realizing the company mission and accessing the joy inherent in giving your greatest gifts to the world.

Image Credit: Roland Tanglao

Google Letters: Imgur
How many hours per week is too much? How do you prevent burnout? Leave a comment below.

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The Rise And Fall Of The 40 Hour Work Week

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The 40 hour work week is a myth, a legend from years past. In many modern workplaces, you are more likely to see a unicorn in the conference room than an employee who punches in at 9 and out at 5.