Gothenburg Trial: Can Shorter Workday Raise Productivity?

Since 2015, nurses at the Svartedalens retirement home (Svartedalens) in Gothenburg, Sweden, had been working six hours per day but getting the normal 8 hours work per day pay. They were part of an experiment sponsored by the Swedish government to see whether a shorter workday could raise productivity. According to the results of the experiment at Svartedalens, 68 nurses who worked six hours a day took half as much sick time as those in the similar facility who worked for eight hours. Bengt Lorentzon, a researcher on this project, said, “They were 2.8 times less likely to take any time off in a two-week period. If the nurses are at work more time and are more healthy, this means that the continuity at the residence has increased. That means higher quality [care].” According to the experiment results, the nurses were happy and had more energy at work and in their spare time as well. The six hours per day work permitted them to indulge in 64 percent more activities with elderly residents of Svartedalens as per the metrics used to measure the productivity in the experiment....