6-Hour Work Day Instead of Usual 8: Feasibility (or Benefits) of Implementation for Ukrainian Enterprises
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| Дата: | 2019 |
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Інститут економіки промисловості НАН України
2019
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| Назва видання: | Економічний вісник Донбасу |
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| Цитувати: | 6-Hour Work Day Instead of Usual 8: Feasibility (or Benefits) of Implementation for Ukrainian Enterprises / M. Vorontsov, N. Belyaeva // Економічний вісник Донбасу. — 2019. — № 4 (58). — С. 186-188. — Бібліогр.: 3 назв. — англ. |
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irk-123456789-1690362020-06-02T01:26:28Z 6-Hour Work Day Instead of Usual 8: Feasibility (or Benefits) of Implementation for Ukrainian Enterprises Vorontsov, M. Belyaeva, N. Scientific Reports 2019 Article 6-Hour Work Day Instead of Usual 8: Feasibility (or Benefits) of Implementation for Ukrainian Enterprises / M. Vorontsov, N. Belyaeva // Економічний вісник Донбасу. — 2019. — № 4 (58). — С. 186-188. — Бібліогр.: 3 назв. — англ. 1817-3772 DOI: 10.12958/1817-3772-2019-4(58)-186-188 http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/169036 331.103(477) en Економічний вісник Донбасу Інститут економіки промисловості НАН України |
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Scientific Reports Scientific Reports Vorontsov, M. Belyaeva, N. 6-Hour Work Day Instead of Usual 8: Feasibility (or Benefits) of Implementation for Ukrainian Enterprises Економічний вісник Донбасу |
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Article |
| author |
Vorontsov, M. Belyaeva, N. |
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Vorontsov, M. Belyaeva, N. |
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Vorontsov, M. |
| title |
6-Hour Work Day Instead of Usual 8: Feasibility (or Benefits) of Implementation for Ukrainian Enterprises |
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6-Hour Work Day Instead of Usual 8: Feasibility (or Benefits) of Implementation for Ukrainian Enterprises |
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6-Hour Work Day Instead of Usual 8: Feasibility (or Benefits) of Implementation for Ukrainian Enterprises |
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6-Hour Work Day Instead of Usual 8: Feasibility (or Benefits) of Implementation for Ukrainian Enterprises |
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6-Hour Work Day Instead of Usual 8: Feasibility (or Benefits) of Implementation for Ukrainian Enterprises |
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6-hour work day instead of usual 8: feasibility (or benefits) of implementation for ukrainian enterprises |
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Інститут економіки промисловості НАН України |
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2019 |
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Scientific Reports |
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http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/169036 |
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6-Hour Work Day Instead of Usual 8: Feasibility (or Benefits) of Implementation for Ukrainian Enterprises / M. Vorontsov, N. Belyaeva // Економічний вісник Донбасу. — 2019. — № 4 (58). — С. 186-188. — Бібліогр.: 3 назв. — англ. |
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Економічний вісник Донбасу |
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M. Vorontsov, N. Belyaeva
186
Економічний вісник Донбасу № 4(58), 2019
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
UDC 331.103(477) doi: 10.12958/1817-3772-2019-4(58)-186-188
M. Vorontsov,
N. Belyaeva,
PhD (Economics), Associate Professor,
Kyiv national university of trade and economy, Kyiv
6-HOUR WORK DAY INSTEAD OF USUAL 8: FEASIBILITY (OR BENEFITS)
OF IMPLEMENTATION FOR UKRAINIAN ENTERPRISES
The theme of my article is “6-hour work day in-
stead of the usual 8: feasibility (or benefits) of imple-
mentation for Ukrainian enterprises”. Initially, we will
consider countries in which people work the least hours
per week, after that - experiments related to the 6-hour
working day, and imagine the introduction of this sys-
tem in Ukraine and around the world.
In the Netherlands, the shortest work week in the
world is only 29 hours. Dutch specialists are used to
working 4 days a week. For 3 days in a row, working
mothers and working fathers take consecutive days.
Everyone is guaranteed vacation and medical care. If the
employee wants, he can reduce the number of working
hours, while wages will remain hourly [1]. So the state
takes care of the balance between personal life and work
among its citizens.
In second place is Denmark and 33 working hours
per week. All Scandinavian countries have adopted
flexible working hours and 5 weeks of paid leave per
year. It is easy for employers to dismiss and recruit new
candidates, but the employees themselves are protected
by law. Compensation after the dismissal of the com-
pany must pay two years.
In Sweden and Italy, it is also customary to work
no more than 36 hours, they pay extra for overtime em-
ployees, but if they are regularly delayed at work, the
employer may be fined for the incorrect organization of
work. Most of all in Europe, the British work – up to
39 hours a week.
And the most important workaholics in the world
can be called workers in developing countries - Japan
and South Korea. It is customary to work there for 50-
55 hours a week, without days off, while still a few
hours to get to and from work. That is why the term “ka-
roshi” appeared in Japan - a sudden death in the work-
place from overwork.
In Sweden, an experiment was conducted at the
state level: for two years, employees of the municipal
nursing home in Gothenburg worked six hours a day in-
stead of eight. As a result, they became less likely to go
to sick leave, more efficiently fulfill their duties and, on
the whole, became happier and healthier.
After almost two years on such a schedule, the staff
again switched to the old system: 8 working hours a day.
Research has proven the benefits of shorter working
hours in terms of health and productivity, but not
money. Bloomberg went deeper into the study to figure
out if a shorter working day could translate into real
savings for the employer. In the long run, yes.
The experiment in Gothenburg was not extended
because the authorities had run out of funding. About
17 million kroons ($ 1.3 million) were spent on two ad-
ditional carers who closed the released watch over two
years. After which, officials said that spreading the prac-
tice to the entire municipality would have been too ex-
pensive and closed the project.
However, in the long run, savings would be felt. A
shorter working day makes employees happier, said re-
searcher Bengt Lorenzon. “They are less susceptible to
stress, less sick, they have more energy and time for dif-
ferent activities”, he explained [2].
In particular, as part of the experiment, nurses were
less likely to go on sick leave than with an 8-hour work-
ing day. They were also less likely to get sick than their
counterparts in the control group. In general, they were
sick less often than nurses throughout Gothenburg
(Fig. 1).
On average, they took 4.7% less sick days for the
experiment period, while nurses with a traditional
schedule from the control group took 62.5% more sick
days for the same period of time. Nurses who worked
less were also less likely to use time off (Fig. 2).
And although the study found the benefits of
shorter working hours for the health and productivity of
employees, it failed to measure the potential economic
benefits of the project in the long term. Although the im-
provement in health and attitude towards work has led
to an increase in the quality of service for sisters on a
reduced schedule.
In general, the health status of nurses in Sweden is
worse than that of an average citizen of the country.
Women in civil service are more likely to suffer, for
example, overweight. Although the study does not pro-
vide exhaustive figures on the impact of the shortened
schedule on health, its improvement in nurses from the
test group was noticeable and over time this would have
an economic effect.
M. Vorontsov, N. Belyaeva
187
Економічний вісник Донбасу № 4(58), 2019
Figure 1
Figure 2
In the nursing home, unfortunately, they did not
consider the costs of health care for nurses, not to men-
tion the calculations of savings in the long term. How-
ever, they recorded an improvement in blood pressure.
Toyota centers in Gothenburg, Sweden's second
largest city, switched to this system 13 years ago. The
company claims that this gave a positive result – em-
ployees became happier, staff turnover was lower, and
profits increased.
Although at the legislative level, a 6-hour working
day has not yet been legalized, so far we can only talk
about an experiment, the effectiveness of which is eva-
luated by each enterprise that joined it. Firms make pre-
liminary calculations and determine the consequences
of introducing such a working day.
In the US, some companies spend hundreds of dol-
lars per employee on special programs to make their
lives happier and healthier, hoping to save money on
healthcare in the future and increase productivity in the
present. But what if this problem is easier to solve not
by fitness and diets, but by simply reducing the number
of working hours for them? However, an eight-hour
work day in America is still considered a necessary mi-
nimum.
From Sweden we will return to Ukraine. Ukrainian
legislation provides that the weekly working time may
not exceed 40 hours. For employees, a five-day work
week with two days off (a working day can not exceed
8 hours), a six-day work week with one day off (no more
than 7 hours a day) can be set, and the final accounting
of working time is valid for continuously operating en-
terprises.
It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that ac-
cording to Art. 53 of the Code of Labor Laws of Ukraine
on the eve of holidays and non-working days, the work-
ing hours of workers are reduced by one hour during
both a five-day and six-day working week, and on the
eve of the weekend, the working time for a six-day
working week cannot exceed 5 hours. Thus, if we adopt
a legally defined length of the working day, then it turns
out that on average with a five-day working week, an
employee works out for about 7 hours 10 minutes, and
for a six-day one - a little more than 6.5 hours. The prob-
lem is that few people know about this law and few em-
ployers want to follow these rules [3].
The second is a 2 month notice. In Ukraine, the em-
ployer has the right to establish part-time at the enter-
prise. This means that wages will be paid for hours ac-
tually worked, and for hours worked overtime, you will
have to pay double the amount as stipulated by the pro-
visions of Article 106 of the Labor Code of Ukraine. The
employer must notify employees in advance of the es-
M. Vorontsov, N. Belyaeva
188
Економічний вісник Донбасу № 4(58), 2019
tablishment of part-time work in advance – at least two
months in advance, and during these two months pay
wages as a full-time job. If there is a simple non-fault of
the employee during these two months, then you still
have to pay at least 2/3 of the "regular" salary.
The third, in practice, situations arise when orders
to switch to part-time work were allegedly signed in two
months, with which workers were also allegedly ac-
quainted two months ago, although in fact everything
happens today. Formally, in this case there are no viola-
tions, since the legislation does not yet stipulate the ob-
ligation of the employer to warn state bodies about the
introduction of part-time work at the enterprise.
At the same time, during the transition to the six-
day period, it will be possible to “win” only if the people
are actually transferred to part-time jobs – the employer
will be able to save part of his wages, but most likely he
will lose in labor productivity. A variant is also possible,
of a legal transfer to part-time work during the actual
performance of work throughout the day, but it must be
remembered that with the actual admission of an em-
ployee to work without an employment contract, full-
time registration if the work is actually performed is
complete working time and wage payments without
paying a single contribution and taxes may be fined
thirty times the minimum wage for each employee in re-
spect of which was committed, and it is today 126000
hryvnia.
So, in Ukraine in will be good for health of nation,
have a bigger profit for a firm, decrease an unemploy-
ment in country, that take away 3% of GDP and people
can find another job and work less. And this all only be-
cause we decrease the working hours down to 6. But
also we will have the bad sides of this program and they
are: losses of the firm, big fine, if we don’t have the law
about it, this program works only in long-term perspec-
tive.
Literature
1. 10 стран с самым коротким рабочим днем.
URL: rabotanur.kz/tips-10+стран+с+самым+коротким+
рабочим+днем-371. 2. Почему переход на 6-часовой
рабочий день – хорошо для бизнеса: опыт шведских
предпринимателей. URL: https://ain.ua/2017/01/25/
pochemu-6-chasovoj-rabochij-den-xorosho-dlya-biznesa/.
3. Чтобы люди были счастливее: реально ли в Украине
ввести 6-часовой рабочий день. URL: https://24tv.ua/
ru/chtoby_ljudi_byli_schastlivee_realno_li_v_ukraine_vv
esti_6chasovoj_rabochij_den_n788183.
References
1. 10 stran s samym korotkim rabochim dnem [10
countries with the shortest working day]. Retrieved from
rabotanur.kz/tips-10+стран+с+самым+коротким+рабо-
чим+днем-371 [in Russian].
2. Pochemu perekhod na 6-chasovoy rabochiy den' –
khorosho dlya biznesa: opyt shvedskikh predprinimateley
[Why switching to a 6-hour work day is good for business:
the experience of Swedish entrepreneurs]. Retrieved from
https://ain.ua/2017/01/25/pochemu-6-chasovoj-rabochij-
den-xorosho-dlya-biznesa/ [in Russian].
3. Chtoby lyudi byli schastliveye: real'no li v Ukraine
vvesti 6-chasovoy rabochiy den' [To make people happier:
is it realistic to introduce a 6-hour working day in Ukraine].
Retrieved from https://24tv.ua/ru/chtoby_ljudi_byli_
schastlivee_realno_li_v_ukraine_vvesti_6chasovoj_raboc
hij_den_n788183 [in Russian].
Received by the editors: 14.10.2019
and final form 19.12.2019
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