Imagine if we had 4 day work weeks. I think the productivity of people would improve.
One of the things that I have noticed in every company that I have worked in is that most workers feel exhausted and overwhelmed. It is interesting that people push themselves to exhaustion when having a work/life balance helps everyone more. I have been guilty of this as well.
For example, in one position I worked I was eager to learn things so I took additional responsibilities and projects on and it caused problems to my health. I have since learned that you have to have spaces to rest and be balanced or you get burned out and then that doesn’t help anyone. When people love their jobs like I do, we don’t see what we do as work. We are thrilled to find answers, and thrilled to research and look into things. Challenges don’t stop us, they become another obstacle to be conquered.
Now all of this can be very helpful, but everything done to an extreme can cause problems. In some companies the solution is to buy things/spend money, or to change the process but decision makers may not want to do that. Which is fine, it is their choice however continuing problems that cause people stress just causes employee burnout and turnover. As an IT person we hear the people who are frustrated with policy preventing them from efficiently doing their jobs, or in some cases not able to do their jobs at all. We take that to the decision maker and when we are told no things are going to stay the same, then we rely that to the person. Then they give up and change companies.
In any company I work for I try to solve all problems forever. However some companies don’t seem to want to solve their problems, and make excuses about why it can’t be done. Anything is possible, it just takes a decision to make it happen.