![]() ![]() For example, through the 1920s automobile tycoon Henry Ford experimented with different work schedules for his employees. This result has been confirmed again and again in various areas of industry. This conviction of Abbe still seems to hold true after millions of experiments over the whole globe.Ībbe discovered that shortening work hours while keeping working conditions unchanged led to an increase in total output. Hugo Muensterberg's seminal article "Psychology and Industrial Efficiency" (1913) states about Abbe's work:Įrnst Abbe, the head of one of the greatest German factories, wrote many years ago that the shortening from nine to eight hours, that is, a cutting-down of more than 10 per cent, did not involve a reduction of the day's product, but an increase, and that this increase did not result from any supplementary efforts by which the intensity of the work would be reinforced in an unhygienic way. Ernst Abbe conducted experiments relating working hours to output in his Zeiss Optical Works factory in Germany. In other words, in such cases, more work was actually shown to be detrimental to output.Ī large number of studies dating back to the early 1900s support these conclusions. Moreover, it has consistently been shown that when employees are made to work longer than 40 to 50 hours per week (or 8 to 10 hours per day), their total output over an extended period of time will drop below the level it had been when only 40 to 50 hour workweeks were required. ![]() Although employees may take an hour or two at the beginning of their work day to reach maximum efficiency, after maximum efficiency is reached, a slow decline in productivity is generally seen as additional hours pass. ![]() First, as is generally considered obvious, productivity (measured as the amount of output produced per hour) generally goes down as hours worked increases.Although to our knowledge no research has been performed relating hours worked to productivity in software development, studies in other fields have consistently arrived at two conclusions: Quite a bit of research over the past century has studied the relationship between hours worked and productivity. Finally, we will more specifically address software development, showing that workers in this field may in fact be even more susceptible to the decreases in productivity brought on by overwork than workers in many other fields. Next, we will discuss the factors that lead to productivity decreases fatigue and stress, for example, are two major contributors. We will next analyze the relationship between hours worked and productivity: specifically, how overwork affects productivity, when it does, and to what extent. Although much of this research has taken place in an industrial setting, we hope to show that it can be extended to software development. We will first review some of the research that has been performed over the past century regarding the relationship between hours worked and productivity. We intend to show that crunch mode is not just damaging to employees personally it is also detrimental to total productive output, and therefore company profits. ![]() After all, many managers choose to employ crunch mode, and many employees view it as a necessary part of their job, even if they may dread it. However, many people are thoroughly convinced that crunch mode is beneficial to productivity, and that it will yield more and better company output. Very few people-even managers of software companies that implement crunch time-would dispute this claim. Crunch mode is without question damaging to the personal lives and general well-being of the workers it affects. ![]()
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