29 replies to this topic

[Mike]

http://www.bbc.co.uk...gazine-18144320

Tool on the BBC website to compare your working hours to your national average and the OECD average - how do you compare?

What do you reckon about the country differences?

[garjones]

What do you reckon about the country differences?

Finding it very hard to believe New Zealand and Italy work longer hours than Japan.

[jamon g]

finding that graph the biggest load of crap i've ever seen!
are they really suggesting Germany and the Netherlands take three months off each year on a 40 hour week?? Someone diddling some figures.

[Arjan Dirkse]

http://www.bbc.co.uk...gazine-18144320

Tool on the BBC website to compare your working hours to your national average and the OECD average - how do you compare?

What do you reckon about the country differences?

Greeks are the hardest workers in Europe. Awesome! And the Netherlands is all the way on the bottom. Do our politicians know this?

[jamon g]

haha, had to take two months off to work as much as the longest workers.
I think someone fell asleep while programming that thing.

[Andrew]

Based on a typical 37.5 hour week, and what I thought was my work-place's generous 33 days of leave each year:
"You work 16 hours more than the annual average for Australia.
This is 16 hours less than the OECD average."
I'm a veritable workhorse compared to my fellow countrymen (but a slacker compared to the rest of the world)!

[garjones]

Greeks are the hardest workers in Europe. Awesome! And the Netherlands is all the way on the bottom. Do our politicians know this?

After extensive experience working in and with a variety of countries ,the number of hours spent in work bears little relation to the amount of hard work done.

[jamon g]

ahh i worked out how they're diddling the figures. The average fulltime work week in australia is about 42 hours, as it is for 'Greek Males'. But the BBC have calculated the other country's work week by averaging out all the part - time workers too, which brings Australia's down to 32. But they leave the comparison to full time greek male workers. How dodgy is that? What agenda is BBC trying to push with this anyway?

[Arjan Dirkse]

ahh i worked out how they're diddling the figures. The average fulltime work week in australia is about 42 hours, as it is for 'Greek Males'. But the BBC have calculated the other country's work week by averaging out all the part - time workers too, which brings Australia's down to 32. But they leave the comparison to full time greek male workers. How dodgy is that? What agenda is BBC trying to push with this anyway?

Where do you have that from? How do you know the 42 hours in Greece isn't an average of part time and full time workers just like you assume they did with Australia?

And the poll is by the OECD, not the BBC. Why do you assume they're diddling the figures? I've read statistics similar to these in several places, also on wikipedia.

[jamon g]

because when something doesn't look right you look to the source of the statistics, not the filtered results on wikipedia etc. The BBC has taken averages from some OECD countries and full time averages from others. If it's not a mistake it's pushing some agenda, or lazy reporting. Greece:
http://www.eurofound.../gr0803049q.htm

Edited by jamon g, 24 May 2012 - 01:24 PM.

[Mike]

I did the figures for me, and it seemed a ludicrous result I got for the comparisons.

I figured I'd crowd source it and see if it was just me. Glad to see it's not.

[craggy]

"You work 85 hours more than the annual average for United Kingdom.
This is 14 hours more than the OECD average. "
-he posted, on his 8th day off in a row.

[Arjan Dirkse]

because when something doesn't look right you look to the source of the statistics, not the filtered results on wikipedia etc. The BBC has taken averages from some OECD countries and full time averages from others. If it's not a mistake it's pushing some agenda, or lazy reporting. Greece:
http://www.eurofound.../gr0803049q.htm

That link you give there just confirm the OECD statistics...

Average weekly hours

Based on available date, the picture of actual weekly working hours has not varied with the passage of time. On the contrary, Greece has kept actual working time at very high levels compared to the other EU member states. This has brought annual working time in Greece calculated on a yearly basis (including the number of days of annual leave and time off) to equally high levels (1800 hours). The decline in working hours appears to be the result of an overall increase in part-time employment, of which women continue to represent a high proportion. In addition, the reinforcement of part-time employment is also associated with the decline in the number of people working very long hours, over 48 per week.

Is it that you want to go on believing the stupid prejudice that Greeks are lazy in general and therefore deserve to be in the situation they're in..?

Edited by Arjan Dirkse, 24 May 2012 - 01:38 PM.

[garjones]

Is it that you want to go on believing the stupid prejudice that Greeks are lazy in general and therefore deserve to be in the situation they're in..?

I don't think that Greek thing is a universal stereotype, I'd never heard of it before you mentioned it being a thing in the Netherlands. Hairy and lecherous I've heard quite commonly but not really lazy.

[John Hendrick]

You work 2072 hours more than the annual average for Ireland.
This is 1894 hours more than the OECD average.

I work 70 hours a week, this is what it told me.

[Arjan Dirkse]

I don't think that Greek thing is a universal stereotype, I'd never heard of it before you mentioned it being a thing in the Netherlands. Hairy and lecherous I've heard quite commonly but not really lazy.

Well it has become that way here since the crisis. I think it's something people like to believe when it's someone else who is in trouble...assuming that those people in trouble have some character flaw which is what got them into trouble.

[Jim Ohara]

I work 70 hours a week, this is what it told me.

I think us small business guys should stay away from questions like this.

Americans work really long hours, but they don't use them wisely. It's very strange seeing the different workplace practices in different countries. I never had anything due the next day while working in the UK, but it the US it seems to be normal business practice.

[garjones]

Americans work really long hours, but they don't use them wisely. It's very strange seeing the different workplace practices in different countries. I never had anything due the next day while working in the UK, but it the US it seems to be normal business practice.

My experience too. There's huge unspoken pressure here to hang around in the office to show face but a lot of it is unproductive. It's obvious to me because we have global teams. I look after 5 major markets in Asia Pacific and get out the door early with my work done, my counterpart in Japan is there until 9 every night looking after 1.

Very notable in processing and call centre jobs where the UK offices an hour less every day than in Asia and still get through the same number of items or calls without fail.

At least in my company what I notice from the American staff is doing things like sending emails at night and on weekends. One of my team does communications, it's an easy job where she just drafts a few emails a week, it's barely a full time role and she's there sending emails on Sunday night like she's the CEO and can't afford to be offline for 24 hours.

I couldn't do the comparison as 1) Malaysia isn't an OECD country and 2) my work patterns are completely random, some days I can do 20 hours and others I'll do 4 and go and go and watch a film in the afternoon.

[Jim Ohara]

American's will deliberately send out emails at odd hours to look like they're committed. I had one client I'm working with who'd sent out emails at 4am every morning. She did this to get her requests in first (it was always stuff she needed that morning). And she never did any damn work during the day. I later found she got up so early because she had trouble sleeping, so she did emails. It really pissed off the rest of us, having 3 emails with requests waiting first thing in the morning, and then when you'd respond you wouldn't get acknowledgement for hours.

Blackberrys started this habit I think. Now if you're not responding to emails within a couple of hours every single day you're not seen as being engaged. Unfortunately it's really easy to pick up those same habits.

[garjones]

I would add that the lady that sends the Sunday night emails is absolutely lovely and my favourite team member but it is fascinating to view those work cultures. I see so blatantly what she's doing but I don't know if our boss does. Maybe he does the same with his boss.

I had to stop working from home very often, while they do in the US all the time, because the general feeling was if you can't be seen you aren't working in Asia. To turn up and be seen and drink tea and have a chat half the day is better for your career than completing all your tasks quickly and efficiently.

I still like to shock them with the story of my mate Tim in Swansea. He was a call centre team leader and used to turn up unpaid every Saturday morning and do some more work. He wasn't praised, he got placed on a disciplinary action plan to work more effectively in his standard working week. The entire concept is completely alien here, he'd have got employee of the month.