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The problem facing the US economy is simple: too many people feel obligated to work full time. Other than this, corporate profits and productivity are fine.
All that needs to be done is to give businesses a standardized way to employ skilled workers at less than full time and clear benefits from doing this, so that those who wish to work less than 40 hours per week can.
A third major way to determine employee compensation, in addition to a flat salary and hourly wages:
The first 20 hours are paid at 1.2 times the current average rate for full-time work.
Work beyond 20 hours in a single week is paid at 0.8 times the current average rate.
This system depends on the employee and employer trusting each other. If they can, flexible hours are better. If there is no mutual trust, then a flat salary would be better. Part of trust is having additional options in case that trust was misplaced, whether it was trust in intentions or in capabilities. While options are available to everyone, it can feel like the cost associated with some options prevents them from being used in normal circumstances.
The widespread adoption of this work concept would reduce unemployment and therefore increase the options available to an employee who was dissatisfied with their current workplace, but several additional legislative changes would be needed to increase trust between the employee and employer.
The first is that while a business using this method could require employees to work the minimum of 20 hours per week, neither party would be penalized if that employee refused to work more than that and was separated from their position as a result. The employee could not be made to accept any unusual penalties in their employment contract for refusing to work more than the minimum of 20 hours, and the business would not have any of the usual obligations or fees from firing an employee for this reason.
The second change would be to the overtime law, so that similar to salaried workers, employees who used this work concept would be exempt from receiving higher overtime pay.
The third, for government employees, would be that additional hiring would be required within a certain time frame in any case where someone was forced to work more than 40 hours per week.
Businesses who used this work concept instead standard wages or salaries would benefit for a simple reason: increased efficiency and productivity in the workplace. While the understanding of how to address inefficient practices by both workers and management has been continuously evolving, there is a concise description of the problem in the ideas of scientific management of the early 20th century:
'Taylor observed that some workers were more talented than others, and that even smart ones were often unmotivated. He observed that most workers who are forced to perform repetitive tasks tend to work at the slowest rate that goes unpunished. . . . Taylor used the term "soldiering" and observed that, when paid the same amount, workers will tend to do the amount of work that the slowest among them does.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management#Soldiering
The unexpected ways that workers will change their productivity was noted in experiments at the Hawthorne Works conducted from 1924-1932. In particular, shortening the work day actually resulted in an increase in total output, and one experiment that linked pay to the individual productivity of workers in a group resulted in a decrease in productivity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
While financial incentives linked to performance are successful in some industries and occupations, experiments have shown that for mental tasks higher compensation can sometimes decrease performance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
Furthermore, even physical work suffers a significant decrease in productivity for periods of scheduled overtime that last for several weeks. According to a review of the existing data on the use of overtime in construction work, "there is about a 10% increase in efficiency losses for each additional 10 hr per week added to the schedule beyond 40 hr."
http://cmdept.unl.edu/drb/Reading/overtime2.htm
A recent survey has shown the importance of social media to college graduates in the younger generation, with one in three saying that being able to use social media such as Facebook at work was more important than financial compensation and more than half saying that "if they were offered a job at a company that banned social media use, they would either turn it down, or find a way to flout the policy."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2059451/Facebook-work-important-large-salary-college-graduates.html
This collection of evidence shows the potential benefit for businesses that compensate employees with both time and a higher average wage for increasing their productivity and accepting a variable schedule.
While the necessary amount of work would be continuously negotiated based on the needs of the employee and the business, trust from having options available in the case of a disagreement would prevent either side from feeling like they are being exploited in the arrangement. Involuntary unemployment in the United States would no longer be a problem.
Great intentions here, but my eyes started glazing over about halfway down - simply put, this is wayyyyy too complicated to ever implement. And this is coming from a "pro government" enthusiast who thinks that the law should be used to control the wild and crazy "free market"...lol.
Here's my solution to encourage part-time work in this country - provide a single-payer healthcare system that is NOT dependent on employment. This way, it'd not cost companies more to hire 20 part-timers instead of 10 full-timers due to the cost of providing health insurance.
Personally, I'd love to work 15 or 20 hours a week at a job, to have some sort of steady income, and do my freelance work on the side. But it seems to be all-or-nothing - you either work full time (which often means way more than 40 hours a week, which I simply cannot do), and nada, except for whatever freelancing stuff I can get on my own.
Something will need to be done as advancements in technology will improve worker efficiency. This will reduce the demand for the resource of labor. In a free market, when the demand for something decreases, the value decreases along with. Add to that a progressive increase in the supply of labor... I think we see where this will take us...
You could always ask the business man nicely if he wouldn't mind paying you double time for your 20 hours of work a week, but laughter doesn't pay the bills unfortunately. Any sort of plan would have to be implemented across all businesses slowly, as shocks to the market could cause wild swings which could be ugly.
I think what it boils down to is... We need smarter, more motivated people running the country than the fools we have now. The ones running for election never seem like better options unfortunately. This is bad, and won't be getting any better. Knowing this, it is up to each one of us to plan the best course of action for ourselves and our loved ones if possible.
What if we do away with all salaried as well as hourly pay schemes? Everyone is paid 100% commission. There are no laws about work hours and there is no overtime. All companies also stop giving any benefits. Everyone is paid based on what they produce. If you produce more, you are paid more. If you produce less, you are paid less. If you can get your job done in 10 hours, you can keep the money, or work 40 hours/week and make four times as much money. The money that would be put towards benefits is also paid to the employee, and they in turn buy their own health insurance/pension/401k/etc.
Give the employee control of their own life, and pay people for results, instead of for just showing up.
What if we do away with all salaried as well as hourly pay schemes? Everyone is paid 100% commission. There are no laws about work hours and there is no overtime. All companies also stop giving any benefits. Everyone is paid based on what they produce. If you produce more, you are paid more. If you produce less, you are paid less. If you can get your job done in 10 hours, you can keep the money, or work 40 hours/week and make four times as much money. The money that would be put towards benefits is also paid to the employee, and they in turn buy their own health insurance/pension/401k/etc.
Give the employee control of their own life, and pay people for results, instead of for just showing up.
How does one determine what a unit of "productivity" is worth? Is all productivity created equal? Some jobs are in support of productive roles, but the folks doing the productive stuff often can't accomplish anything without that support staff. Stuff like this works very well in sales, but it's harder to apply towards other professions.
Also, we all know there are a lot of workers out there that would starve to death if they were paid based upon how productive they were
I think what it boils down to is... We need smarter, more motivated people running the country than the fools we have now. The ones running for election never seem like better options unfortunately. This is bad, and won't be getting any better. Knowing this, it is up to each one of us to plan the best course of action for ourselves and our loved ones if possible.
Amen brother. Politicians have long been viewed as egomaniacs with too much money and nothing better to do. It seems ever more true this election.
Ofcourse not. The employer can't TRUST the employee either. Everyone's looking out for themselves.
Weren't you the one complaining about unions in the other thread? Do you not see the irony here?
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