The problem with work isn’t how much we do, but how we do it
As politicians and employers push people to work longer hours and return to the office, researchers argue that productivity depends on more than time spent at a desk. Better-designed jobs, greater autonomy and employee well-being could deliver more than simply asking workers to do more.
1. The job: Interesting
“In general, today’s discussion tends to focus on the quantity of work, not its quality,” says Prof. Hannes Zacher. “We hardly talk about the work itself or how it is organized. The discussion ignores the fact that people might appreciate their work much more, and perhaps even work harder, if it were more interesting, challenging and rewarding.”
Zacher is an occupational and organizational psychologist at the University of Leipzig who studies health and well-being at work, occupational aging and employee behavior. These are all hot topics in Germany right now, as will become clear later, but they are relevant to workers around the world. Zacher examines politicians who demand that people work more, employers who require workers to return to the office, employees who have proved themselves in hybrid work arrangements but are now being told to return, and young people who refuse to accept the conservative dictates of the labor market they are entering. He also examines the introduction of AI, global economic challenges, and demographic and social trends. His aim is to shift the focus away from workers themselves and toward the way the labor market is structured.
2. Work location: A thoughtful perspective
When the modern labor market first took shape, there were few limits on working hours. In the 19th century, laborers often worked 60 hours a week, spread across six or sometimes even seven days. When the Welsh textile industrialist Robert Owen proposed the concept of “eight hours of work, eight hours of leisure, and eight hours of rest” in 1817, it was a radical idea. Labor organizations adopted the slogan and fought to reduce working hours. However, it was not until 1919 that the International Labour Organization formally adopted the eight-hour workday, still based on a six-day week totaling 48 hours. As early as the 1920s, Ford was among the prominent global companies to introduce a five-day workweek. Legislation limiting working hours gradually took root around the world, and the trend over the past century has moved in one clear direction. It has even pointed toward a more ambitious goal: a world in which people receive an income without having to work. Several countries and territories already provide a partial basic income or a “citizen’s dividend.” Alaska and Macau, for example, have each provided annual payments to residents or citizens, although the programs differ in their eligibility rules and funding. Optimists believe the artificial intelligence revolution could turn such exceptions into a broader model, in which automation generates profits that are then distributed among citizens.
We thought we were moving toward this scenario, but reality took a few unexpected turns along the way. Technology has enabled many employees to accomplish more in less time, focus on the substantive rather than purely technical aspects of their work, and enjoy more flexible schedules. At the same time, it has blurred the line between office hours and home life. Driven by email, WhatsApp and Slack, many people have found themselves working from anywhere, at any hour. The erosion of these boundaries has sharpened the debate over work-life balance, the importance of knowing when to stop, and the need to respect the time of both employees and employers. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. As many people shifted to working from home, the boundary between work and personal life became even harder to maintain. Yet experience has shown that many employees can maintain the same levels of productivity and output while working remotely, with some becoming more efficient and happier in the process.
Consider, for example, a study published in Nature that examined 1,612 employees at the Chinese travel technology company Trip.com. During the study, half the employees worked from the office five days a week, while the others worked two days from home and three days from the office. The researchers found no difference in performance or promotion prospects. Hybrid employees also reported high levels of job satisfaction, and their turnover rate fell. Based on these findings, the company moved all employees to a hybrid model, a change that managers predicted could boost productivity over time.
Other companies around the world also adopted partial remote-work arrangements. As the pandemic subsided, it seemed that the hybrid model had taken root, promising a more productive and satisfying way of working. But that was not the end of the story. An increasing number of companies began reducing the number of days employees could work from home. Google, Meta, Apple and Microsoft have all tightened their in-office requirements, while Amazon, Dell and JPMorgan have imposed full-time office mandates on at least some groups of employees. In Israel, the trend was delayed by the war, which required maximum flexibility from both employers and employees. Here, too, however, a broad return to the office is underway, particularly in finance, insurance and high tech. Wix, for example, has eliminated the option of working from home. Company President Nir Zohar explained that the move was necessary in light of the AI revolution, which requires the company’s workforce to “move fast and together.”
“In Germany, about 25% of employees work from home at least some of the time,” Zacher notes. “But remote work is less common in large corporations and certain sectors, such as manufacturing and construction. Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Deutsche Bahn and Deutsche Bank have all increased the number of days employees are required to spend in the office. The reasons these companies cite relate to organizational culture or productivity, rather than to the specific requirements of the work itself.”
Once again, the discussion focuses on quantity rather than quality.
“Exactly. Working from the office can be justified when it is genuinely necessary for people to be together, such as when onboarding new employees or when a team is tackling complex problems that require close coordination. If an organization decides to increase the number of days employees spend in the office, it should explain the genuine reasons for the decision and establish guidelines tailored to specific tasks and teams, rather than impose a uniform requirement on everyone.
“Employees and their representatives should also be involved at an early stage. There must be an adequate transition period, along with flexibility for exceptions, such as employees caring for children or other relatives, or those with health-related limitations. Office days should also justify the commute. That means coordinating team schedules so colleagues have opportunities to meet and ensuring that managers are present themselves. Finally, the change should be evaluated after a few months to determine whether it is achieving its intended goals.”
3. Workload: Reasonable
In Germany, however, the debate, like the broader global discussion, concerns not only where people work but also how much they work. In fact, this has become the crux of the debate in Germany, where working more has been framed as a national mission.
“We are simply not efficient enough,” declared Chancellor Friedrich Merz shortly after returning from a visit to China. “Each of you probably tells yourself, ‘I’m already doing quite a lot,’ and that may be true. But if you had returned from China, ladies and gentlemen, you would have a much clearer sense that long-term prosperity cannot be sustained by focusing on work-life balance and a four-day workweek. We need to do more, now.”
Merz has voiced similar sentiments since becoming chancellor in May 2025, against the backdrop of the economic challenges he inherited: sluggish growth, a shrinking workforce partly due to demographic decline, intensifying international competition and soaring energy costs. While the economic rationale may be clear, such statements carry broader implications. Last month, a video featuring remarks he made earlier this year went viral, sparking reactions online and across the media in Germany and abroad.
The debate surrounding Merz’s comments has extended beyond Germany because it touches on a broader shift in thinking, from working less to working more. In Silicon Valley, for example, “Grindcore” culture has gained prominence. It promotes an extreme work ethic that glorifies relentless effort, personal sacrifice for professional success and the “9-9-6” model: working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. It was reported this week that Corgi, an insurance startup that champions a seven-day workweek and serves as an example of this phenomenon, plans to begin operating in Israel.
Similar trends are emerging in Europe. In August, Maziar Mike Doustdar, an executive at Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, said: “If you don’t like working hard, you don’t belong with us. We need to run at a completely different pace. We need to do more. We truly need to be the elite athletes we aspire to be, and that requires more training, more work.” He added that this meant “getting up earlier in the morning and going to bed later.”
“Across Europe, companies are cutting back on flexibility and bonuses while demanding greater effort,” Zacher says. “We look toward the United States and executives like Elon Musk, who essentially say, ‘If you aren’t willing to work 60 hours a week, you’re free to leave.’”
Zacher, however, argues that the answer to economic challenges, whether at the national or corporate level, should not simply be to demand more work.
“Some conservative politicians treat work-life balance as the opposite of high performance, as something we cannot afford,” he says. “Yet the research is quite clear: a healthy work-life balance actually enhances performance. You need to take care of your health and personal life to be an effective employee. The goal should not be to work longer hours, but to work smarter and better. That requires ensuring employees’ well-being.”
Working smarter might even mean working less. Germany has tried this before, with positive results. In 1956, the country moved from a six-day to a five-day workweek. Studies found that productivity remained unaffected while employees’ health and well-being improved. In 2024, an experiment went a step further. Forty-one companies shortened their workweeks by four to eight hours, effectively moving to a four-day week, without reducing pay.
“The findings on employee well-being are robust: participants experienced less stress and got more sleep,” Zacher says. “As for productivity, data on revenue and profits were available for only 12 of the companies, but no significant change was observed. In other words, output did not suffer in any measurable way, even though people were working fewer hours.” By the end of the experiment, 30 companies, nearly three-quarters of the participants, had chosen to maintain the reduced schedule. They continued to do so the following year.
4. The requirements: A different way of thinking
When the German chancellor spoke about a four-day workweek, he was not entirely accurate in his characterization of the German labor market: the standard workweek is five days. Germans do, however, work fewer hours than some of their European neighbors, averaging 29.66 hours a week. In Israel, the figure is 34.96 hours, while in the United States it is 36.27.
Even in light of these figures, Zacher argues, increasing working hours is not the answer.
“When politicians look for the causes of economic problems, the immediate suspects are the citizens, as if they aren’t working hard enough and simply need to put in more effort,” he says. “This is a discussion that focuses on quantity rather than quality and fails to address the need for jobs that offer greater interest and challenge.”
Yonit Blumenfeld, an occupational psychologist and chair of the Occupational, Organizational and Social Division of the Israeli Psychological Association, agrees.
“Even if there is a problem, and the Chinese are poised to take over the global economy, it is not enough to shift the entire burden onto the individual by saying, ‘They should just work harder to bridge the gap.’”
So, what should be done?
“We need to apply systems thinking, at both the national and organizational levels, to make every hour of work more efficient. Think of it in terms of wheat: if a farmer has one dunam of land and wants to increase the yield, the farmer might use genetic engineering to increase the number of grains per ear. But these are measures an individual cannot implement alone because they lack the necessary resources. Only larger systems can make them possible. When looking at China, for instance, we should consider the resources it has invested in technological infrastructure, roads and transport systems. These investments are designed, among other things, to help businesses thrive.”
According to Zacher, the demand to “work more” rests on several flawed assumptions, beyond the basic mistake of prioritizing quantity over quality.
First, it overlooks social and gender-related factors. Part-time employment is highly prevalent among women in Germany: 48% of women work part-time, rising to 65% among mothers. By contrast, only about 10% of men work part-time, according to data from the European Union’s information center.
Second, the argument unfairly portrays younger generations as less willing to work.
“In reality, there are no intergenerational differences in this regard,” Zacher says. “Even if younger people place greater importance on work-life balance, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to work hard. We don’t really have evidence of a shift in values or work motivation.”
So, there’s no change? Don’t young people work differently?
“There is a demographic shift. There are fewer young people, which gives them more options and greater choice. Young people think rationally about where they can get the most in return, and companies now have to compete more aggressively for educated young workers, who are in shorter supply because of declining birth rates. These individuals might say, ‘Well, if I can’t work from home, I’ll choose to work somewhere else.’ One could interpret this as an unwillingness to work as hard as previous generations, but this selectivity has more to do with supply and demand than with work ethic.”
Zacher is not alone in this view. Professor Marcel Fratzscher, one of Germany’s leading economists and president of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin, argued last year that the problem with the German labor market was not a lack of diligence. Rather, it stemmed from factors such as a shortage of childcare, a tax system that incentivizes part-time employment, barriers facing immigrants, and insufficient corporate investment in technology and the workforce. In short, these are structural barriers that individuals cannot overcome simply by working longer hours.
Conservative politicians and economists, however, continue to focus on the volume of work. Proposals include eliminating a public holiday to boost output, raising the retirement age to 70 and restricting part-time work to people with a “special reason.” None of these proposals has been adopted.
None of this will make a difference, Zacher emphasizes, because the underlying problems are structural. “And now, on top of all that, add AI.”
5. The advantage: Smart use of AI
Global labor-market shifts take on local nuances. Germany, for instance, has a smaller youth population, a limited supply of educated young workers and specific challenges involving taxation, immigration and childcare infrastructure. Israel faces a different set of circumstances, including employees serving in the military reserves, young people recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and periods of war that have shaped their personalities and needs, educational barriers affecting entire segments of the population, and difficulties integrating the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) community into the workforce.
While Europe and the West are deeply concerned about competition from the East, this is less of a focus in Israel. Israelis also work, on average, about five hours more per week than their counterparts in those regions.
Yet employers everywhere share the desire to increase profits, and the upheaval brought about by AI transcends borders. One of the great promises of the technological age was that, as machines took on more tasks, people would be able to work less. In 1930, the renowned British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that within a century, by 2030, technological progress would reduce the need for human labor and eventually bring the working week down to just 15 hours.
With only four years remaining until that target date, it is already clear that the prediction will not be fulfilled in the way Keynes envisioned. Rather than using technology to generate greater profits while allowing employees to work less, many companies are using it to reduce their workforces. An increasing number of businesses are laying off employees, citing the need to reorganize their structures and processes for the AI era. A recent example is Israeli fintech company HoneyBook, which announced last week that it was laying off 14% of its workforce.
“When AI began to gain significant traction, we expected it to shorten the workweek to four or even three days,” says Mali Alcobi, a lecturer and organizational consultant specializing in the “new world of work” and the Israeli representative of the global movement to shorten the workweek. “After all, having such powerful productivity tools presents an incredible opportunity to reduce working hours. Companies could retain their existing employees without causing burnout while also attracting top new talent. That hasn’t happened. In fact, the trend is moving in the opposite direction: ‘Do more, and work longer hours and more days.’”
Why?
“Because organizations prefer to use these tools to avoid hiring or even to lay people off, leaving those who remain to do more work. They prioritize the bottom line rather than making proper use of their workforce.”
What should companies focus on instead? What are they failing to understand?
“Human working hours, unlike machine operating hours, have limits. Every individual has a maximum capacity. There is a threshold beyond which people cannot continue working without risking burnout, illness, absenteeism or even quitting.
“We must consider both technology and employee well-being. When people enjoy greater well-being, they become more creative, happier and more enthusiastic about coming to work. Conversely, when organizations take an aggressive stance toward employees, such as by mandating a full five-day workweek in the office after COVID, employees often respond with resistance. They may reduce their output or take on work elsewhere.
“Human beings operate on the basis of fairness. They want to feel that their employer treats them equitably, and in return, they reciprocate that fairness. If an employer acts in the opposite way, employees will not give their best effort.
“We saw this during the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations that laid off staff too hastily or failed to provide the necessary tools for remote work subsequently faced high employee turnover. We will likely see the same pattern with AI. People will remember which employers acted rationally and realistically, balancing the needs of employees with those of the organization, and which focused solely on the bottom line.”
So, what needs to be done?
“Businesses need to rethink everything and find ways to leverage this new technology to their advantage. Any organization that knows how to use AI to support employee well-being, rather than simply demanding a tenfold increase in output, will gain a long-term competitive advantage.”
Zacher notes that these issues are closely linked to questions about the scope of employees’ roles and where they work, and, more fundamentally, to the nature of work itself.
“AI is sometimes used to expand the scope of work, with the time saved translated into higher output targets. As for office attendance, if AI takes over more tasks, the office becomes less important for individual work and more valuable as a place for mutual learning and relationship-building. That distinction could help companies determine how many days employees should spend in the office.
“Companies must decide which tasks AI should support and how the time saved should be used. If AI relieves employees of tedious tasks, allowing them to focus on meaningful work that involves autonomy and decision-making, it can be a valuable resource. If AI instead takes over planning and decision-making, leaving employees primarily to review its outputs, they lose control and opportunities to apply and develop their skills. This can undermine both motivation and well-being.
“The perceived link between AI adoption and layoffs can also damage motivation and well-being by increasing job insecurity. Companies therefore need to determine how to integrate the technology in collaboration with their employees. The goal should be to redesign jobs in ways that preserve employees’ authority, decision-making power and sense of meaning in their work.”
