Jobs 30 hours a week

Burnout is a frequent subject in my area of work.

So many people come to me anxious to get away from occupations that have slowly engulfed their whole life. It's not a pleasant sight, and it's a lose-lose scenario for everyone—the cost of burnout is high for both workers and employers.

So when Amazon recently announced their new 30-hour workweek program, I was intrigued. According to news reports, Amazon plans to pilot the initiative with a limited group of HR personnel initially. The initiative enables Amazon workers to work 30 hours each week for 75% of their regular wage while still receiving full benefits. Employees in the program have schedule flexibility built in: they work core hours of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and work the extra hours whenever they like.

Amazon seems to be on to something. For one thing, in this day and age, the 40-hour workweek is pretty arbitrary. It was founded in the early 1900s by Francis Perkins during the Roosevelt administration to safeguard manufacturing employees from overwork and exploitation. With the technological advancements our country has seen over the last 100 years, it is just not necessary for people to work so many hours. Despite the fact that technological developments continue to save us more and more time—the typical employee works roughly 47 hours per week, according to a recent Gallop poll—the 40-hour workweek remains the gold standard and seems to be expanding.

Companies with a focus on the financial line obviously have a role in campaigning for a workweek of 40 hours or more, but is this really beneficial to their bottom line? We seem to have become so acclimated to this norm that we have forgotten to pause to assess its real usefulness in the context of the 2016 workforce.

An eight-plus hour workweek is not only unnecessary for most people today, but it also tests the boundaries of human attention and concentration. According to a Harvard Business Review study, experts (from a variety of fields, including athletes, academics, and professionals) report spending no more than five to six hours per day focused on their area of expertise, with the majority reporting only a couple of hours per day at the start of their day when their focus is sharpest. Productivity either plateaus or falls after five to six hours of intense attention. This seems to imply that the additional two to three hours in a regular, full-time workday (or more, for the vast majority of people who bank loads of overtime weekly) are not particularly productive. As a consequence, both the employee's time and the employer's money are squandered.

But it's not just about productivity. Because the working environment is evolving, employers need innovative strategies of recruiting and keeping strong employees. According to a recent Deloitte poll of over 7,000 Millennials, employer loyalty is poor among this age, with 66% planning to quit their present company within the next four years. Given that Millennials now constitute the majority of our workforce, sensible businesses should make it a goal to lower turnover rates among this cohort.

One thing is certain: Millennials know exactly what they want. Millennials want more influence over their professions and workdays. They want to work with forward-thinking firms. Pay and financial advantages are crucial to them when it comes to picking a job, but they also value work/life balance, leadership chances, and flexible work schedules.

So, are employers paying attention? Amazon seems to be. Their 30-hour work week program provides workers with two of the top four criteria that they value: work/life balance and a flexible work schedule. Time will tell how well Amazon's new program performs, but if the results are anything like those of numerous other organizations who have attempted similar models (Brath, Svartedalens, KPMG, and Deloitte), the regular 9-5 will soon be a thing of the past.

...And, mercifully, burnout will follow.