People who work less and have a better work-life balance can get more done in less time.
Companies with poor work-life balances often have a culture of 'long-hours' that pushes people towards spending (or acting like they are spending) more hours working that are necessary to complete their tasks.
I haven't seen anyone pushing for 'higher compensation per unit of output', but many employees would like their employers to focus on improving 'output per worker hour' in addition to 'output per worker'.
To be clear, if we want this we have really only have one option: Increase demand (for jobs or products from) companies that do this well. Good work-life balance is a non-salary perk like many others that companies offer.
You can't legislate this focus on the part of employers, all you can do is incentive it.
I agree that happier and less stressed people often (but not always) have higher specific productivity (output/hour), but they are usually less productive per week/month/year.
I also agree that companies should focus on increasing work output rather than hours worked, and many books have been written on this subject (by people like Deming). Indeed, productivity has increased, though I am sure we are all aware of deficiencies; this secular increase in productivity has been responsible for the improvement in living standards over the last few hundred years.
Increasing demand for desirable and attractive jobs is a laudable end-goal, and I agree that we should pursue system-wide reforms to facilitate this, though we probably disagree on which policies would achieve greater prosperity and better options for workers.
My greatest disagreements with you are that you are begging the question by assuming that people want to work less, and that you believe that we can improve total output by reducing total input.
> they are usually less productive per week/month/year.
You have evidence that this is true? If so, do you have evidence that the lower productivity is caused by (not simply correlated with) people being less stressed and happier?
> "you are begging the question by assuming that people want to work less
I am not. I said "if we want this".
However, I think I would have a much easier time backing up the assertion "people want to work less" than you would have backing up " happier and less stressed people often (but not always) have higher specific productivity (output/hour), but they are usually less productive per week/month/year" as a causal relationship.
>"You have evidence that this is true? If so, do you have evidence that the lower productivity is caused by (not simply correlated with) people being less stressed and happier?"
I never said low stress and low happiness cause low productivity; I am only saying that less hours means less total work output.
>"I said "if we want this"."
You imply that less work and more play is 'better' work-life balance, which assumes that people want to work less.
> I am only saying that less hours means less total work output.
That is not what you said originally, but go ahead and back up that assertion instead.
Working fewer hours is correlated with higher productivity, possibly high enough that the increase in efficiency is high enough to overcome the reduction in hours when it comes to total output:
>"> I am only saying that less hours means less total work output.
That is not what you said originally, but go ahead and back up that assertion instead."
That is actually what I said originally, as can be seen from the following quote:
>>>>"I agree that happier and less stressed people often (but not always) have higher specific productivity (output/hour), but they are usually less productive per week/month/year."
Worker productivity is usually defined as work per year; I refer to specific or hourly productivity as the amount of work you get done per hour in the office.
Companies with poor work-life balances often have a culture of 'long-hours' that pushes people towards spending (or acting like they are spending) more hours working that are necessary to complete their tasks.
I haven't seen anyone pushing for 'higher compensation per unit of output', but many employees would like their employers to focus on improving 'output per worker hour' in addition to 'output per worker'.
To be clear, if we want this we have really only have one option: Increase demand (for jobs or products from) companies that do this well. Good work-life balance is a non-salary perk like many others that companies offer.
You can't legislate this focus on the part of employers, all you can do is incentive it.