They've apparently reported no drop in overall productivity, i.e. Four days' work is equal to the old five days work, an increase in productivity per day.
That doesn't make any sense. A 32 hour work week is not nearly enough hours to make an additional 8 hours pointless. That's a full 25% of your work week so far. Maybe if we were talking reducing 60-80 hour weeks to 40, maybe. But come on.
You're assuming those 40 hours are used all productively. I don't think it's wildly off to assume that 8 hours of the 40 hour week are basically wasted because people like playing around once their concentration is gone.
Plus on friday, people tend to be a lot less productive.
It absolutely does. In modern companies many employees spend at least an hour a day (and in many cases 2-3 hours for less motivated employees) dicking about on social media, reading the news etc. If the change in working conditions comes with a reduction of this kind of messing around and more work focus, I could see it easily having a profound impact on productivity.
This definitely seems like it's true. I wonder if there have been any reputable studies or surveys on how much time office employees waste on average like this?
Mine? If so... It's called "hyperbole". If not, well, yeah, claiming that anyone can be productive for 40 hours a week in a desk job for their whole lives is pretty ridiculous.
They've apparently reported no drop in overall productivity, i.e. Four days' work is equal to the old five days work, an increase in productivity per day.