Swedish Company Slashes Working Day To Six Hours With Positive Results

Could you be trusted to get all your work done in just six hours? Well workers in Sweden are apparently capable of it.

The Toyota service centres in Gothenburg have set the working day at six hours for 13 years now, and they say it is making them money.

Managing director Martin Banck has said to The Guardian:

Staff feel better, there is low turnover and it is easier to recruit new people. They have a shorter travel time to work, there is more efficient use of the machines and lower capital costs – everyone is happy. Profits have risen by 25%”

The working day at the centre is split in two shifts, a popular move with clients and employees alike, as opposed to one shift running from 7am-4pm.

A recent experiment at a care home has seen the shortened hours switch industries, with nurses in the Svartedalens experiment also working six, not eight, hours per day.

The shift patterns are now being trialed elsewhere too, including Gothenburg’s Sahlgrenska University hospital, where the orthopaedic surgery department has implemented the new timings in a bid to increase productivity and quality of service.

But before you jump on a plane, heartily singing Abba hits the whole way, be warned, according to tradingeconomics income tax in Sweden has reached a whopping 56.9%.

Swings and roundabouts then really.