Is the eight-hour working day effective in Russia in 2021?

From the history

In November 1917, a very significant event took place in Russia, which changed the lives of many workers of that time. A decree was adopted that established an 8-hour working day. By this time, in many countries there was a grueling struggle to reduce the shift of workers.

Subsequently, the 8-hour working day lost its relevance, and in 1928-1933 a transition was made to a 7-hour work period. The length of the work week was 42 hours. After the outbreak of World War II, an 8-hour working day was established. Later (1656-1960) the working day was again reduced to 7 hours. It was only in 1991 that a law on the protection of workers' rights was adopted, which stipulated that the length of the working week could not exceed 40 hours. This is supposed to be enshrined in the Labor Code.

How the eight-hour workday came to be

The history of the emergence of a working day of exactly this length begins in 1817. Robert Owen, an English capitalist, first formulated the rule: “8 hours for work, 8 for rest and 8 for sleep.” In this case, work time is measured without taking into account rest breaks. This is exactly the duration he set for his workers.

At the World Working People's Congress, which took place in London in 1864, Marx and Engels called for the establishment of an 8-hour working day. In Chicago, on May 1, 1886, there was the first strike demanding such a length of work day. At this time the demand was progressive. Then it was not uncommon for the duration to be 12-15 hours.

For the first time in history, workers were able to take advantage of this. In 1888, the workers of this enterprise received such a working day. The widespread use of such a day began after Henry Ford in 1914 reduced the working day from 16 to 8 hours, while doubling wages. It is important to note that profits doubled after this. This was a convincing example, after which the use of an eight-hour working day became very widespread.

In 1917, almost immediately after the Great October Socialist Revolution, a Decree was issued to establish an eight-hour working day throughout Russia. However, since 1928, the transition to a 7-hour day began. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the previous length of the working day was restored. In 1956, the transition to a 7-hour day began again.

Currently, Article 91 of the Labor Code is in force, which states that the length of the working week should not exceed 40 hours per week. It's not specified there. How long should working days be? Currently, the Soviet Decree on the 8-hour working day has been abolished, but the length of the working day has not changed.

Break

In accordance with Russian labor legislation, every employee has the right to rest and meals. Breaks during an 8-hour working day cannot last more than two hours. However, lunch cannot be less than thirty minutes. It should also be noted here that a break for rest and meals is not included in the worker’s working hours. And therefore it is not paid.

Example

The employee goes to work according to a set schedule from 8:00 to 17:00. In fact, she performs her official duties 8 hours a day. Because she has a five-day work week. In addition, she is given one hour to rest and eat. This is provided for by law and labor regulations. She cannot fail to comply with them. If you set her a working day without lunch, this will be a violation of labor laws.

Organizing a technical support work schedule: the pros and cons of 8 and 12 hour shifts

[The material was published as part of an article competition on DOU]

In this article, I will look at choosing a work schedule for technical support specialists.

Considering that the success of a tech support company depends entirely on its customers, scheduling can be one of the most important competitive advantages. We will not consider international companies with a huge number of clients around the world. Since in this case, solutions like Live-chat, 24/7 availability and round-the-clock shift work of a large staff of employees are simply necessary. We will consider organizing a workflow for companies new to the IT services market. Therefore, the initial condition will be that the clients are located within approximately the same time zone.

The most common are 8-hour or 12-hour work schedules. Let's look at what to start with when choosing.

First, you need to remember that work schedules can be one of the motivating or demotivating moments for staff. The quality of their work will depend on employee satisfaction.

Secondly, the organization of labor at an enterprise is regulated by relevant legal norms, and its competent organization will allow managers to avoid legal and economic risks.

And finally, thirdly, customer-oriented companies should be guided by the wishes of their “target” audience. Therefore, in order to determine the required work schedule, you need to take into account the frequency of requests at different times of the day, the presence of “quiet” periods, the average processing time for current tasks, as well as the personal data of employees (at least, marital status and age).

What are the benefits of an 8-hour shift:

Employees, as a rule, have no reason to be dissatisfied with such a schedule, except in cases where they work part-time or combine work with study, etc.
Regular periods of work and rest allow you to lead a healthy lifestyle, and, accordingly, experience less fatigue and dissatisfaction with work.
An 8-hour work schedule does not imply different tariffs for daytime and evening hours, special attention from the labor inspectorate, or the provision of additional vacation days to employees due to overtime. In addition, such a schedule implies fixed salaries.
It is easier for management to monitor employees.
Daily presence at work allows the employee not to lose operational control and be more involved in the overall process.

Disadvantages of an 8 hour shift:

If personal presence of employees in the office is required, the costs of personal funds and travel time to the workplace increase.
This schedule implies a lunch break in the middle of the shift. In this case, you need to either notify clients that specialists are unavailable during these hours, or have a sufficient number of employees on staff to carry out continuous work.
If the nature of the work does not imply the possibility of postponing the unfinished process until the next day, then overtime will occur. When this situation occurs regularly, this entails either additional payment for overtime or a decrease in staff loyalty.
With short shifts, the overhead costs of accepting and handing over cases to the shifting or on-duty employee increase.
Possible discrepancies with clients' work schedules will cause dissatisfaction on their part. For example, the client works from 8.00 to 17.00, and technical support from 9.00 to 18.00. If a client comes to work and cannot begin his duties due to problems, he will have to wait about an hour until the required specialist is available. To determine this situation, it is necessary to know the frequency of requests from users and their distribution during the day.

Rice. 1- Call center load schedule during the day

If the picture shown in Figure 1 emerges, it becomes clear that 8-hour shifts are most likely not suitable. It is possible to apply such a schedule in this case only if the duration of resolving applications does not exceed 4 hours and it is possible to hire shift operators. In addition, the load on operators, although reduced during lunch hours, still requires the presence of specialists at the workplace.

Now let's look at the nuances of working for 12 hours:

Employees who live far from work or those who need time off during the week (for various reasons) prefer 12-hour shifts.
12-hour shifts typically do not include a one-hour lunch break.
Less time and money is spent by employees on travel to and from work.
With longer periods of specialist work, clients get the impression that technical support is always available.
The ability to completely solve client problems during one shift.

The disadvantages of a 12 hour shift are:

High stress load on the first line operator. Second-line specialists also cannot maintain high productivity over long continuous periods of time.
It is necessary to provide longer rest periods than an 8-hour shift, and this may cause problems with staggered scheduling.
Certain difficulties with monitoring the work performance of employees by management.
It is necessary to additionally compensate employees for work in the evening (or, if there is a production need, at night) hours, and for this, carefully keep records of the time worked by employees, and have documentary evidence of the staff’s consent to work overtime. However, this point can have a positive impact on overall performance if the financial costs are justified and employees are interested in such remuneration. Example: in 2021 in Ukraine, the labor inspectorate established fines for violations of legislative norms in relation to employees from UAH 3,200 to UAH 32,000.

If you try to cover the production needs shown in Figure 1 with 12-hour shifts, you can get the following graph:

Rice. 2- Organization of support service work in 2 shifts

Here, the intersection of shift hours was used to organize interaction and cover periods of main or peak load with the maximum number of employees. If there is more than one person in each shift, then the issue of breaks necessary for employees during the work shift is easily resolved. However, organizational problems arise. For example, providing employees with transport to take them home at the end of the second shift.

It also suggests the need for an additional 8-hour shift in the period from 24:00 to 8:00 (Fig. 3).

Rice. 3 — Organization of support service work in 3 shifts

If we apply three 8-hour shifts to this load schedule, we get the following picture.

Rice. 4 — Organization of support work in 3 shifts of 8 hours

Here it is immediately clear that in addition to the problems mentioned above is added the problem of uneven load of operators, which is especially important during periods of peak load.

The optimal shift system, of course, depends on the needs of the production. It is necessary to develop shift schedules in compliance with all rules and regulations for hours of work and rest, calculate the economic component, and carry out high-quality work with staff. To minimize the negative effects of each of the schedules, mixed schemes can be used. For example, the first line works in 8-hour shifts, and the second line specialists work in 12-hour shifts.

There are such types of schedules as: flexible - this is when an employee can determine the time spent at work, and control is exercised solely by results, and not by presence; sliding - this is when the number of hours of work is strictly agreed upon, but the beginning of the working day and weekends depend on the shift schedule for a certain period of time; individually developed schedule and so on.

Let's try to choose a suitable work schedule for a support service consisting of 4 people.

With 12-hour shifts, taking into account the required rest days, the work schedule may look like this:

Rice. 5 - Work schedule of four employees 2 days in two

In this schedule, there is no possibility of interaction between the first and second pairs of employees, and the possibility of round-the-clock support is not implemented.

You can shift the schedule a little to alternate the composition of the pairs.

Rice. 6 - Rotating schedule for four employees

If the daily load differs from that shown in Figure 1, then schedules of 8-hour shifts can be constructed using the same principle. The start time of shifts is determined in a similar way, only in the tables it will be necessary to list not the days, but the hours of work.

Rice. 7 — Daily work schedule for 8-hour shifts

This graph shows when a shortage of employees occurs. The shortage can be eliminated by staggering breaks or adding employees to 4-hour shifts.

If you create a schedule with 12-hour employment, you can avoid a shortage of employees within one day. But the need to provide extended rest to employees requires an expansion of staff.

Rice. 8 — Daily work schedule with 12-hour shifts

If there is no need to ensure the work of two operators simultaneously, then the graphs may look like this:

Rice. 9 — Hourly work schedule for two days with 8-hour shifts

Rice. 10 — Hourly work schedule for two days with 12-hour shifts

It is worth remembering that if the workload changes depending on the season or the number of ongoing projects, then the schedules will have to be reviewed monthly, and sometimes more often.

Whatever your choice, a well-developed communication culture in the company will help greatly simplify interaction, allowing you to correctly transfer tasks and notify colleagues or management about the current situation, project milestones, and the like.

Is this productive?

In modern life, the question of reducing or increasing the working day and, in general, the length of the working week is quite acute. Of course, all state and municipal enterprises are accustomed to the fact that the working day begins at 8 am and ends at 5 pm. Is this productive? And how much can the employee do during this time? Many entrepreneurs are confident that a person can only work well and productively for a few hours. After this, the subordinate is simply distracted. Therefore, with an 8-hour working day, it is difficult for an employee to carry out all the instructions of management competently and quickly.

Not so long ago, in 2010, Mikhail Prokhorov proposed increasing the existing length of the working week by as much as 20 hours. However, no one really supported his idea. After all, in addition to work, a person must rest and do other equally important things.

How to increase productivity

You can start with four simple changes that will allow you to structure your workday and improve your results:

Increase task relevance. Many people find it difficult to concentrate on a task, especially if time permits. But the speed and quality of work increases if a person limits himself to certain deadlines and indicates a reward for the result.
Divide your workday into 90-minute chunks. Don't worry about how much you can get done before 6:00 p.m. Think about how many work segments you will need to complete a particular task. As a result, it may turn out that to complete a standard amount of work you need not 10, but 5 hours.
Make sure you actually get rest during your breaks. We are often so busy planning our work day that we completely forget to add time to rest in our schedule. During breaks, you should completely disconnect from work! You can have a snack, take a nap, do some light exercise, relax and listen to music, or meditate. Do whatever you want, just don't switch to another work task.
Turn off notifications. This is a rather interesting step that can really help, if not improve productivity, then at least remove irritants. Turn off all notifications about new messages and letters, not only on your computer, but also on your phone. Stop worrying and fussing. If you're waiting for an email from work, you'll be checking your email anyway. If this is not important to you now, why be distracted?

That's all, actually. Just four simple tips that are not that difficult to follow. And after that, you may find that your time is rubbery, and tasks that previously took 5-6 hours now fit well into 4 hours.

How to plan your working time correctly

This question is asked by many citizens of our country who have jobs. An 8-hour working day implies that a person must perform certain job duties and instructions from management throughout this entire time. Therefore, it is important here not to be distracted and not to mind your personal affairs. This is especially not worth doing in the case when the head of the organization does not treat his employee very well.

A person must learn to do the most important work first, and then deal with the remaining documents (if we are talking about an office).

Example

Three new employees joined the company at once. Accordingly, the HR specialist had more work to do that needed to be done immediately. In addition, he needed to draw up additional agreements to existing employment contracts. The specialist began to do both, but in the end he didn’t manage to do anything.

Schedule

Every organization or enterprise has a working time schedule. It's called a schedule. It reflects the beginning of the work and its end. It is also necessary to indicate the work schedule in the employment contract with the employee. After all, it is simply unacceptable to infringe on the rights of a citizen. What are we talking about?

Let’s say a person working in an organization has an 8-hour working day. The duration of his work activity must be strictly limited to a given period of time. After which it is unacceptable to detain the employee at the workplace. He has the right to rest and attend to his personal affairs.

In addition, lunch during an 8-hour working day cannot be less than 30 minutes. This rule is enshrined in labor legislation.

Comments and suggestions

What do you think about this? Leave comments using the form below.

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Keywords:1Business

Other categories

As a general rule, the work week is 40 hours. This means that each working day accounts for eight hours. But there are always exceptions to the general rule. For example, for some categories of workers the average working time per day may be less.

Thus, employees of educational institutions cannot perform official duties more than 36 hours a week. Accordingly, their working day will be less than eight hours.

Healthcare workers must work no more than 39 hours per week. Therefore, with a five-day work week, the duration of their official activity per day will be no more than seven and a half hours.

pros

During a working day, which is 8 hours, an employee manages to do a lot of good deeds and fulfill all the instructions of management, perhaps even visit other institutions. In addition, we should not forget that citizens who work at enterprises on such a schedule can easily go on sick leave or take vacation. They will also not have to work on weekends and holidays. Because their salary is fixed and specified in the employment contract.

The management of an organization always sees the advantages of an eight-hour working day in the fact that subordinates are under their control all this time, which means they will perform their official duties better and will not be able to go home early.

In addition, with such a stable schedule, a person can set aside time for lunch. In an eight-hour working day, it is at least thirty minutes, but in most organizations a whole hour is allocated for this. This period of time is not paid, but the employee gets the opportunity to rest, get distracted, have a normal, leisurely lunch. This is his legal right, which is provided for by labor legislation and the contract. And no one can encroach on it.

Minuses

Most people work in enterprises and organizations where an 8-hour working day is established (lunch usually lasts one hour), which is quite convenient. However, many still believe that it would be better to shorten the period of official activity. This is especially true for people engaged in heavy physical labor. This is primarily due to the fact that people get very tired, as a result of which they do not always have time to complete the assigned tasks. For employees this is a minus, but for unscrupulous managers of organizations, on the contrary, it is a big plus. After all, a person who is tired after an 8-hour work day will not demand an increase in position and salary, because he will no longer have free time for this. He is not able to develop and set new goals and objectives.

People who work according to a standard schedule most often spend their free time at home in front of the TV and computer; they do not want to exercise. On the prescribed two days off, they go shopping and pick up a lot of unnecessary things and products. Because after work you don’t always want to go to the supermarket for a new portion of vegetables and fruits.

In addition, office employees gain excess weight very quickly during an 8-hour day. After all, you need to spend all your time sitting at your desk at the computer, and during your lunch break you want to eat something tasty. The movements of such workers are minimal.

People who work 8 hours every day get sick very often. As a result, their income decreases and their expenses increase.

Peak work: why the 8-hour workday should be abandoned

The 8-hour workday is an outdated and ineffective approach to work. If you want to be as productive as possible, it's worth leaving this relic behind and finding a new path.

The 8-hour workday was invented during the Industrial Revolution as an attempt to reduce the number of manual labor hours for factory workers. Two hundred years ago this was a breakthrough and a more humane approach to work, but it is not suitable for today.

Like our grandfathers, we spend 8 hours working for long periods of time, with little or no breaks. Heck, most people even work through their lunch break!

This outdated approach to work is not helping us, it is dragging us back.

The best way to structure your day

A recent study by the Draugiem Group used a computer application to track employees' work habits. Specifically, the app measured how much time people spent on various tasks and compared it to their productivity levels.

In the process of measuring people's activity, they came to a surprising conclusion: the length of the working day didn't really matter, what mattered was how people structured their days. In particular, workers who took short breaks were significantly more productive than those who worked longer.

The ideal work-break ratio is 52 minutes of work followed by 17 minutes of rest. People who followed this consistency demonstrated a unique level of focus in their work. For almost an hour they were 100% dedicated to the task they had to complete. They weren't checking Facebook "very quickly" or getting distracted by emails.

When they felt tired (again, after about an hour), they took short breaks during which they were completely distracted from their work. This helped me plunge into another hour of productive work with fresh energy.

Your brain wants to work for an hour and rest for 15 minutes.

People who have discovered this magical productivity ratio benefit because it taps into a fundamental need of the human mind: the brain naturally functions in alternating bursts of high energy (about an hour) and low energy (15-20 minutes).

The best way to cope with fatigue and distractions is to be more intentional about your workday. Don't try to fight fatigue when your productivity starts to drop after an hour of work, take it as a sign that it's time for a break.

Breaks are easier to take when you know they will make your day more productive. Fatigue often wins out because we continue to work without paying attention (after we've lost energy and focus) and take the wrong breaks (checking email and watching YouTube don't recharge you as much as going for a walk).

Take control of your workday

An 8-hour workday will benefit from breaking down your time into strategic intervals. Once you find a balance between your natural energy and the effort you put in, things will go much smoother. Here are four tips to help you achieve perfect rhythm.

1. Break your day into hourly intervals

We usually plan what we need to achieve by the end of the day, week or month, but we are much more effective when we focus on what we can accomplish right now.

In addition to creating the right rhythm, scheduling your day in hourly increments simplifies complex tasks by breaking them down into manageable chunks. If you're a formalist, you can divide the day into 52-minute intervals, but an hour also works well.

2. Respect this hour

The interval strategy only works because we use peaks in energy levels to achieve extremely high levels of concentration for a relatively short period of time.

If you disrespect this hour by texting, checking emails, or briefly checking Facebook, you are ruining the whole point of the approach.

3. Really rest

A Draugiem study found that employees who took more than one break per hour were more productive than those who took no breaks at all. Likewise, those who took truly relaxing breaks performed better than those who were unable to tear themselves away from work while “resting.” To increase your productivity, you need to step away from your computer and forget about your phone and to-do list.

Walking, reading and talking are the most effective ways to recharge because they take your mind off work. On a busy day, it might be tempting to catch up on emails or make phone calls during your breaks, but that's not a good idea, so push those thoughts away.

4. Don't wait for your body to tell you to rest.

If you wait until you feel tired to take a break, it may be too late—the window of peak performance has already passed. Sticking to a schedule ensures that you work when you're most productive and rest when you're least productive.

Remember that it is much more effective to take a short break than to continue working when you are tired and confused.

General conclusion

Dividing your workday into periods of work and rest that match your natural energy levels speeds up your workday and increases productivity.

In what cases can the working day be reduced?

Normally, in a 40-hour week, the working day is 8 hours. This time does not include a lunch break, that is, it is not paid. Before a holiday, working hours should be reduced by one hour. This rule is enshrined in the Labor Code. In addition, persons who work part-time for another organization must work there for no more than four hours. On days off they are allowed to work a full shift.

In addition, the eight-hour working day may be reduced for certain categories of employees. For example, for pregnant women, mothers with children under 14 or disabled people under 18, people caring for sick relatives. Citizens who are on parental leave but are forced to continue their work activities should be assigned a part-time working day (4 hours).

Important

Despite the fact that most people work in enterprises for 8 hours a day, their work efficiency does not increase. Because employees who have a stable salary, regardless of productivity, are not interested in fulfilling their job responsibilities more quickly. Because this does not affect their wages. This is despite the fact that all official activities are under the control of management. A lunch break in an 8-hour working day should be at least thirty minutes, but not exceed two hours.

All employees working in this mode have the right to vacation and sick leave. The latter’s payment will depend on the subordinate’s length of service.

A citizen who works eight hours a day cannot always immediately complete the tasks assigned to him. But even in this case, the head of the enterprise cannot detain him in place after the end of working hours.

Story

In 1866, Marx and Engels, at the International Working People's Association Congress, called for the introduction of an eight-hour working day.[1] After much labor struggle (including through strikes) and other unrest, the eight-hour workday was only formalized in Germany in 1918.[2]

In 1888, owner Ernst Karl Abbe established an 8-hour working day, 12 days of annual leave, pensions, etc. Every employee, from the director (Abbe himself) to the worker, received a salary and a share in the profits corresponding to his annual earnings, and the maximum salary of any employee should not exceed the minimum by more than ten times.

Corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and famous business executive I.M. Sechenov, in his publications of 1894, proved that a working day lasting no more than 6-8 hours is optimal from a physiological point of view. In Russia, in July 1897, as a result of workers' strikes, a decree was issued that limited the working day of the industrial proletariat throughout the country to a legal norm of 11.5 hours a day. By 1900, the average working day in manufacturing averaged 11.2 hours, and by 1904 it did not exceed 63 hours per week (without overtime), or 10.5 hours per day.[3] In 1908, in the factories of the Moscow province, the average working day was 9.5 hours for adult workers and 7.5 hours for minors[4].

Excessively long working hours for some workers and underemployment or partial unemployment for others is a social problem.