There's a piece in this months Wired about how it's smarter to sleep late. In summary, 10 hours sleep good; 'night owls are more creative'; and the stress hormone cortisol peaks in your blood around 7am. If different types of people/worker work better at different times of day, why is the creative working day is dictated by the business working day? Is it really important to have your creative department in from 9 o' clock if they function better later in the day?
Then I think, as long as you get your work done it shouldn't really matter how long you work or where you are. A system that rewards efficiency instead of putting in the hours, especially in a creative industry, is surely a better model. Especially creative people by their very nature are curious, so while they're not at work they're collecting stuff in their heads that might mean they get to an answer quicker in the future - saving your company time and money.
Randomly, this has just made me think that I'd like to work for an international company, so that you're always working on other peoples time zones.
I think you might be on to something, if we can't convince people we don't need to start at 9am, maybe we need to work for people for whom 9 happens later! OK, I think I've confused that sentence.. Basically I'm all for time zone shifts allowing me a lie in!
Posted by: Helen-LG | 02 January 2009 at 05:04 PM
apparently work-club (http://www.work-club.com/) operate on this principal.
Posted by: harmony | 08 January 2009 at 04:43 PM
I know I work better in the evening but i'd hate the thought of having to 'work' (in the office) late. I'd go for a 2pm start with a 6pm finish, 5 hours 'homework' in the evening (between 6pm - 2pm) sounds perfect. I too heard that Work Club have a unique work/life balance setup.
Posted by: Lee | 12 January 2009 at 08:42 PM